Toronto Biennial Names First Batch of Artists for 2022 Edition

The Toronto Biennial of Art in Canada has announced the 37 artists and collectives that will participate in its upcoming 2022 edition, scheduled to run March 26–June 5. The exhibition will include 23 new commissions.

Organized by curators Tairone Bastien, Candice Hopkins, and Katie Lawson, along with former TBA curators Clare Butcher and Myung-Sun Kim, this edition was postponed from September 2021 because of the pandemic. It will take the title of “What Water Knows, the Land Remembers,” building on the inaugural iteration in 2019, which was called “The Shoreline Dilemma.” Unlike other exhibitions of its kind, the Toronto Biennial is organized by the same curatorial team for its first two editions, with the plan that a selection of artists would present in both of those editions, like Judy Chicago and Syrus Marcus Ware.

[Read a review of the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art.]

The participating artists hail from various places around the world, from Canada to Zimbabwe. Indigenous communities in Canada, Colombia, Aotearoa, Norway, and the United States will also be represented.

Most of the artists in the biennial are not well-known internationally, although some—like Chicago, Jeffrey Gibson, Marguerite Humeau, and Brian Jungen—are regulars at recurring exhibitions like this one. More artists showing in the exhibition will be announced in February.

In a statement, the biennial’s founder and executive director, Patrizia Libralato, said, “Having postponed our event by six months, we are eager to invite our local audiences and communities back, and excited to once again welcome the world to Toronto this spring to experience ambitious contemporary art by among the most compelling artists working today. Our curatorial team has expanded on the themes of the 2019 Biennial to create a second edition that speaks directly to many facets of Toronto’s history, geography, and culture that inform what our city is today.”

The current artist list follows below.

Newly Announced Artists:
Derya Akay
Ghazaleh Avarzamani
Andrea Carlson
Jeffrey Gibson
Hanyaterra | Jatiwangi Art Factory*
Marguerite Humeau
Timothy Yanick Hunter*
Tsēmā Igharas and Erin Siddall
Janet Kigusiuq
Tanya Lukin Linklater
Amy Malbeuf
Victoria Mamnguqsualuk
Anne Zanele Mutema*
Joar Nango
Eduardo Navarro
Aki Onda
Jessie Oonark
Paul Pfeiffer
Dana Prieto
Augustas Serapinas
Buhlebezwe Siwani*
Denyse Thomasos

Previously Announced Artists:
Nadia Belerique
Brian Jungen
Waqas Khan
Mata Aho Collective
Eric-Paul Riege
Camille Turner

Artist Participating in 2019 and 2022 editions:
Aycoobo (Wilson Rodríguez)
Judy Chicago
Shezad Dawood
Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Ange Loft with Jumblies Theatre & Arts
Jumana Manna
Abel Rodríguez
Susan Schuppli
Syrus Marcus Ware

*Artists invited by Chiedza Pasipanodya and Sebastian de Line, TBA 2022 curatorial fellows.