Dream of a Toronto biennial becomes real
Long-imagined survey of the city’s visual arts will open during fall 2019
“What we want is for Toronto to be recognized for the amazing visual arts centre that it is.” PATRIZIA LIBRALATO BIENNIAL’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
It was in July 2015, a day by virtue of the extreme improbability of its events that should have been freezing cold: not one but two art biennials, right here in Toronto, were making strides forward at exactly the same time.
Toronto, though, had heard this song before. Biennials — big, broad surveys of artworks from dozens of artists at minimum — have been a rapidly multiplying phenomenon for at least a couple of decades. For just as long, various local iterations had stuck their hands up to say “me too,” to no eventual result.
But just this past Thursday, for the first time in all those false starts, one has emerged as the proverbial real deal (the other, DEMO-GRAPHICS, has rebooted as “Zeitgeist” and remains in development). At an event convened by Mayor John Tory himself, the Toronto Biennial announced that it will open in fall 2019, run for 90 days and showcase anywhere from dozens to hundreds of artists.
Where? That’s TBA, too, says Patrizia Libralato, the Biennial’s executive director. But those are the details that will support the larger goal and time is on their side.
“I feel like the city, and the art community, have been wanting a biennial for decades,” she says. “What we want is for Toronto to be recognized for the amazing visual arts centre that it is.” Make no mistake: much of the groundwork is already well laid. In 2015, Libralato conferred with Tory, who brought to city council a motion to support a feasibility study for the biennial idea (“That’s just what we’re calling it,” Libralato said. “The foundation is that we’re trying to create something meaningful for Toronto.”)
Council approved, and Libralato was able to bring in a consultant to create a 100-page document outlining budget and economic impact.
By 2016, the study was done and the city indicated its support, and the Biennial took another step forward. It’s since gained funding support from TD Bank and the Ontario Trilli- um Foundation. It means, Libralato says, happily, that “the thing is a thing.”
For a Toronto art world that has heard talk of such a thing going back decades, it seems almost impossible. More recently, a summit of sorts convened by the Power Plant and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in 2011gauged interest in such an event. It found it to be high but, once again, nothing happened.
Now, though, is not then, Libralato believes.
“The world’s eyes are on Toronto right now,” she said. “We’re always on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most livable cities list, we’re broadly diverse and we have the brain trust to support it.”
More than that, a biennial could be the unifying force that the city’s eclectic art scene needs to reach the bigger world out there.
“I always say this is for Toronto first,” she says. “You have to deepen that local consciousness. But it also has to internationalize our context here.”