TORONTO BIENNIAL OF ART ANNOUNCES CURATORIAL APPOINTMENTS FOR 2024 EDITION

Toronto, ON… Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA/the Biennial) today announced the appointment of Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López as co-curators to guide TBA’s exhibition for the third edition of the city-wide art event taking place from September 21 - December 1, 2024. TBA worked with a group of prominent art-world leaders including TBA 2019 and 2022 Senior Curator and current Executive Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project Candice Hopkins, to develop a list of international and Canadian curators for consideration. 

Toronto Biennial of Art Executive Director Patrizia Libralato said, “We are delighted to welcome Dominique and Miguel, thought leaders who will contribute significant scholarship, innovation, and inspiration as we shape the upcoming Biennial edition and programming. Their areas of research and ongoing commitment to supporting both emerging and established contemporary artists from Canada and around the world will deepen TBA’s connections to local communities and its place in global conversations. Together, we aim to create an event as uniquely diverse, responsive, challenging, and engaging as the city itself.”

The critically acclaimed Toronto Biennial of Art launched in 2019 and attracted over 450,526 visitors to its first two editions. The Biennial provides expanded understandings of contemporary art practices, and its free, citywide programming aims to inspire people, bridge communities, and contribute to global conversations. The Biennial has featured over 76 exhibition artists including powerful works by AA Bronson, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Shezad Dawood, Judy Chicago, Jeffrey Gibson, Brian Jungen, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Kapwani Kiwanga, Joar Nango, New Red Order, Jumana Manna, Caroline Monnet, Lisa Reihana, Denyse Thomasos, and Camille Turner.

“It’s a great honor to be invited to curate TBA 2024 with Miguel. I’m thrilled for this opportunity to co-create an event that could resonate with complex issues of our time in relation to the changing realities of Toronto and the praxis of coexistence. I am looking forward to working with artists, who will bring new and fresh ways of thinking and seeing, and the communities as well as TBA’s partners throughout the city. I am enthusiastic and passionate about the next edition of TBA.”

Dominique Fontaine is a cultural leader, curator, advisor, and strategist on innovation in arts and culture. As a connector, she brings together artists, curators, and the public to enable transformative actions for diversity, equity, and inclusion in contemporary art. Fontaine is a curator and Founding Director of aposteriori, a non-profit curatorial platform – researching, documenting, developing, producing, and facilitating innovation in diverse contemporary art practices.

Fontaine’s recent projects include Imaginaires souverains, Le présent, modes d’emploi, Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto, Montreal, QC; Foire en art actuel de Québec 2020; Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art; Dineo Seshee Bopape: and- in. the light of this._______, Fonderie Darling, Montreal QC; Repérages ou À la découverte de notre monde ou Sans titre, articule, Montreal, QC; Between the earth and the sky, the possibility of everything, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2014, Toronto, ON. Dominique is co-initiator of the Black Curators Forum; a member of AICA-Canada, the American Association of Museum Curators (AAMC), and the International Contemporary Art Curators Association (IKT); and is part of Intervals Collective. Fontaine was a laureate of Black History Month of the City of Montreal 2021. 

“I am beyond excited to work with the Toronto team and envision a meaningful 2024 Biennial for the artists, the art ecosystem, and especially for the city. I am looking forward to contributing to the local context and encouraging new collaborations with artists, activists, and cultural workers that are posing urgent questions about what forms art can take in the public sphere. I am devoted to bringing art that challenges, inspires, encourages, and connects us.”

Miguel A. López is a writer and curator whose practice focuses on the role of art in politics and public life, collective work and collaborative dynamics, and queer and feminist rewritings of history. He worked as chief curator, and later co-director at TEOR/éTica, San José, Costa Rica, from 2015-2020. In 2019, he curated the retrospective exhibition Cecilia Vicuña: Seehearing the Enlightened Failure at the Witte de With (now Kunstinstituut Melly), Rotterdam. The exhibition traveled to Mexico City, Madrid, and Bogota. 

Other recent curatorial projects include Sila Chanto & Belkis Ramírez: Aquí me quedo / Here I Stay en el ICA-VCU, Richmond, VA (2022), Hard To Swallow. Anti-Patriarchal Poetics and New Scene in the Nineties at ICPNA, Lima, Peru? (2021), and if I devoted my life to one of its feathers? At the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2021), and 21 Bienal de Arte Contemporânea SESC_Videobrasil. Comunidades Imaginadas at SESC, São Paulo, Brazil (2019). He is the author of Ficciones disidentes en la tierra de la misoginia [Dissident Fictions in the Land of Misogyny] (2019), and co-editor of The Words of Others: León Ferrari and Rhetoric in Times of War (2017). He was a recipient of Independent Curator’s International’s 2016 Independent Vision Curatorial Award.

The Toronto Biennial of Art is pleased to acknowledge the following supporters: Canada Council for the Arts; Lindy Green Family Charitable Foundation, TD Bank Group; The Michael and Sonja Koerner Charitable Foundation and Woodbridge Investments Corporation.

About the Toronto Biennial of Art

The Toronto Biennial of Art is Canada’s leading visual arts event focused exclusively on contemporary art from around the world. For 10 weeks every two years, local, national, and international Biennial artists transform Toronto and its partner regions with free exhibitions, performances, and learning opportunities. Grounded in diverse local contexts, the Biennial’s city-wide programming aims to inspire individuals, engage communities, and contribute to global conversations.

The Toronto Biennial of Art launched in 2019 and was a popular and critical success. The Biennial provides expanded understandings of contemporary art practices and is building a legacy of free, inclusive, and accessible contemporary arts programming in Toronto, Mississauga, and their surrounding communities.

For more information, visit: torontobiennial.org, @torontobiennial, and #TOBiennial24 on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.