Art Toronto reflects Canadian art community’s focus on sustaining domestic ecosystem
With around 80% of its exhibitors based in Canada, this edition of the country’s biggest art fair reflects the current “elbows up” attitude of a nation embroiled in a trade war with its neighbour
Art Toronto, Canada's largest art fair, took place from October 28th to November 1st at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The fair featured a sense of warmth and grounding, with a series of installations that celebrated Canadian landscapes and promoted artistic solidarity. One installation, Untitled (Watching) (1996) by the late Lynn Donoghue, was inspired by her time in Alberta and featured discarded caribou antlers scattered across the tundra.
This theme of returning to natural roots was a prevalent theme at the fair, alongside the goal of uniting the Canadian art landscape.
The fair's new director, Emily Jean Alexander, stated that although the fair's capacity was down 5%, it was still significantly larger than other international art fairs that had reduced their exhibitor numbers more drastically. There were far fewer US galleries at this year's Art Toronto, with 80% of the 105 exhibitors being Canadian. New Brunswick participated for the first time, and dozens of galleries from British Columbia, Québec, and Ontario were present.
Throughout the fair, there was a strong emphasis on creating a sustainable art market in Canada. This was exemplified by a nostalgic installation by Ottawa-based former software engineer Rich Loen called Databells (2025), which connected a collection of bells with statistics ranging from whimsical to serious. Visitors could also contemplate Kathy Slade's monumental tapestry Sinking in the West (2023) and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection's recent acquisition, My First Medicine Teacher by Métis artist Christi Belcourt.
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