Art Toronto 2019 Canada’s Best Art Fair

Art Toronto started in 2000, and it is one of Canada’s most important annual art fairs. It showcases international contemporary and modern art with galleries from Canada and all over the world presenting their most beautiful works. It was held at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre.

Art Toronto 2019

Art Toronto 2019

Art Toronto 2019

Art Toronto 2019

The opening preview party was a charity evening benefiting the Art Gallery of Ontario. It allowed guests to get first access to the art and the opportunity to purchase it before the fair starts.

The fair had special programming including art tours by curators and by Canadian Art editors. There were talks from solo artists and collectors. The PLATFORM program brought together art world experts to talk about various trends. Some of the titles of these talks were “Art in the Cloud”, “Conversations on an Emerging Market“, “The Artist as Bridge Builder“, “Why Museums Exist” and “How to Take Apart and Image and Put it Back Together“.

This year there was a special exhibition entitled ” Focus: California- Indoor /Outdoor“.

California has many contrasts within it. The glamour of Hollywood and making dreams come true is contrasted with the ongoing natural disasters of earthquakes, mudslides, and fires that threaten the landscape. The beautiful Pacific Coast can take one’s breath away contrasted with the congested freeways with way too many cars. San Francisco’s hippie heritage has morphed into Silicon Valley. The artists in this exhibition brought a unique spin to the theme. One of the contributors, artist and author Dave Eggers (known for his best-seller A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and his magazines The Believer and McSweeney’s,) showcased his animal drawings that have their own witty and unique personalities in their declarations. Other artists in “Focus California” were Luke Butler, Janet Delaney, Woody De Othello, Lota Ezawa, Ramior Gomez, Margie Livingston, Terri Lowenthal, Karen Lofgren, Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Rick Prelinger, Alan Rath, Chis Sollars, Larry Sultan, Christine Wang, Kandis Williams, Sune Woods and Karla Wozniak.

Art Toronto Design: The Park had a curated selection of video works using the theme of landscape. The works were presented as if they were shown in a park with green lawns and outdoor seats. The installation was under the design direction of Nicole Engelmann and James Khamsi

The 20th RBC Canadian Painting Competition gave new artists an opportunity to present their works and get considerable attention. There were fifteen finalists selected to have their work displayed. This year’s winning piece was by Amanda Boulos, entitled ” In the Morning”.

3/edition Toronto featured art books and accompanying educational programming to bring awareness of the history and need for the continued existence of art books.

There were so many exciting works from a variety of galleries from both Canada and all over the world including Galerie de Bellefeuille (Montreal and Toronto), Corkin Gallery (Toronto), Mayberry Fine Art (Toronto and Winnipeg), Galerie Raphael ( Frankfurt and Paris), Georgia Scherman Projects (Toronto), Galerie Van Der Planken (Antwerp), Zemack Contemporary (Tel Aviv), Quimera (Buenos Aires), DNA Gallery (London), Gregory Lind Gallery (San Francisco) and several others.

A few of the artists had solo booths including Micah Lexier (Birch Contemporary), Veronique La Perriere (M. Galerie D’este), Ryan Sluggett (TrepanierBaer Gallery), and Shawn Hunt (Macaulay & Co).

Art Toronto was a wonderful place to enjoy the artistic talents from Canada and from around the world.