Events

ART TORONTO UNVEILS 2026 PROGRAMMING, LED BY EDWARD BURTYNSKY’S THE VAULT AND A NEW GENERATION OF COLLECTING

For Director Emily-Jean Alexander’s first edition, Canada’s leading international art fair pairs major artist presentations and collector conversations with new initiatives designed to build the next generation of Canadian collectors

Art Toronto, Canada’s most significant annual art event, has announced programming for its 27th edition, taking place October 29 through November 1 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

At the centre of the 2026 program, Nicholas Metivier Gallery presents The Vault Collection, a special presentation of work by internationally renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, bringing together some of the artist’s rarest and most important photographs spanning four decades alongside the world premiere of two new works from his forthcoming project, Mining: For the Future. The fair will also extend art beyond the traditional gallery booth through ambitious installations exploring the interconnectedness of nature and art, alongside conversations with leading collectors, art dealers, curators and cultural figures. New for 2026, Intact Insurance joins Art Toronto as presenting sponsor of the Intact VIP Lounge and will also present Friday’s conversation with collector and 21c Museum Hotels co-founder Steve Wilson.

Under the leadership of Emily-Jean Alexander, who takes the helm for her first edition of Art Toronto this fall, the fair is also placing a renewed focus on the future of collecting in Canada. New initiatives including the Ready to Collect Art Advisory Desk, Friday Emerging Collectors Evening and The Insider’s Eye at Art Toronto are designed to make buying art more approachable and create new pathways into collecting.

With 105 exhibitors from Canada and around the world, Art Toronto brings together galleries, artists, collectors, curators and cultural institutions, reinforcing its role as the country’s most important annual marketplace for contemporary art and a meeting place for the people shaping Canada’s art ecosystem.

“For my first Art Toronto, I wanted to think about what it means to build the future of an art fair, and for me, that starts with the next generation of collectors,” said Emily-Jean Alexander, Director of Art Toronto. “Canada has extraordinary artists, galleries and institutions, but a strong art market also depends on people feeling that collecting is something they can participate in.

This year is about opening that door wider: giving people the confidence to discover artists, talk to gallerists, buy their first work and begin relationships with art that can last a lifetime.”

NICHOLAS METIVIER GALLERY PRESENTS EDWARD BURTYNSKY’S THE VAULT

Nicholas Metivier Gallery will present The Vault Collection, a special presentation of work by internationally renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Bringing together some of the artist’s rarest and most important photographs dating from 1985 to 2016, the presentation traces more than four decades of Burtynsky’s career and his ongoing examination of industry, landscape and the scale of human ambition.

The Vault Collection includes a selection of Artist Proofs released from Burtynsky’s own archive, works traditionally reserved for museum acquisitions and the artist’s future estate, alongside legacy prints of iconic early photographs. Originally captured on film, these works can now be presented at a larger scale that was not possible at the time of their original release due to material and technological limitations.

“Starting with the first images by Ed that I saw in the 1980s, this show tracks the past 40 years of his career,” said Nicholas Metivier. “While maintaining remarkable consistency, Ed has never been trapped by subject matter: from Railcuts to Shipbreaking, from Oil to Water. All of these different subjects relate to his original idea: the impact of man on the earth. This show is a unique reminder that Burtynsky is a singular voice in the photographic world.”

Nicholas Metivier Gallery will also premiere two new Burtynsky photographs at Art Toronto from the artist’s forthcoming project, Mining: For the Future. Created following Burtynsky’s 2025 trip to Western Australia, the works return to a subject he has explored since the mid-1980s, mining, while turning his attention to mines producing materials such as lithium, copper and cobalt needed for a more sustainable energy future. Burtynsky captures these industrial landscapes through vibrant colour, contrasting textures and painterly forms.

The two new photographs will make their world premiere at Art Toronto and will be unveiled on Thursday, October 29.

BUILDING CANADA’S NEXT GENERATION OF COLLECTORS

For 2026, Art Toronto is placing a new emphasis on one of the most important questions facing the Canadian art market: where will the next generation of collectors come from?

A series of new initiatives is designed to make buying art more approachable, demystify the art fair experience and give people practical tools for beginning and continuing a collection.

Launching this year, the Ready to Collect Art Advisory Desk will connect visitors with professional art advisors who can offer personalized recommendations based on individual interests and collecting goals. Modelled on programs at major international fairs, the initiative will help visitors identify galleries and artworks to explore and provide guidance around purchasing work.

That focus comes to life on Friday, October 30 from 5–9 PM with the fair’s new Emerging Collectors Evening, an after-hours program created for people curious about buying art or beginning to build a collection.

Alongside DJs and cocktails, visitors will have opportunities to meet gallerists and participate in programming dedicated specifically to collecting. At 6 PM, art advisor Nico Epstein leads Top Picks to Start a Collection With, followed at 7 PM by Megan Patterson with This Is How I’d Spend $5,000 for You, offering a practical look at acquiring work at an emerging-collector price point.

Beginning October 1, fairgoers can also access The Insider’s Eye at Art Toronto, a free one-hour digital learning module designed to give visitors the confidence to navigate the fair like a seasoned collector, from reading a booth and speaking with gallerists to identifying standout works and approaching a first or next acquisition.

FROM COLLECTING TO CULTURAL LEGACY: STEVE WILSON PRESENTED BY INTACT INSURANCE

The conversation about how collections begin and what they can eventually become continues on the Platform Stage.

On Friday, October 30 at 5 PM, entrepreneur and art collector Steve Wilson, co-founder of 21c Museum Hotels, joins Art Toronto for Steve Wilson on Building & Sharing a Collection, presented by Lead Sponsor Intact Insurance.

At Art Toronto, Wilson will share his personal collecting philosophy and discuss the evolution of the collection, intriguing artworks, philanthropy and the experience of turning a passion for collecting into a platform for public engagement with 21st-century art.

ART BEYOND THE BOOTH

Throughout the fair, a series of Feature Installations will bring ambitious artworks into shared spaces, extending the Art Toronto experience beyond the traditional gallery booth. This year’s program considers the interconnectedness of nature and art and the ways artists respond to landscape, transformation and human intervention.

Upon arriving at the fair, visitors will encounter Abraham Anghik Ruben’s Danish Shaman (2026), presented by Nōma Gallery, connecting the fair to land, memory and form.

As visitors ascend into the fair, Kathy Slade’s monumental tapestry Sinking in the West (2023), presented by Mónica Reyes Gallery, considers recurrence, time and landscape.

At the centre of the fair, Karine Giboulo’s Joy is a Resistant Bacteria (The Living Room) (2026), presented by Art Mûr, imagines a domestic space seemingly abandoned following an unknown catastrophe. Among damaged furniture, ash and forgotten objects, tiny worlds begin to take shape: figures rebuild and cultivate, vegetation takes root and life slowly returns. The work follows Giboulo’s Housewarming project, presented at the Gardiner Museum in 2022–23.

At the Platform Stage, Sarah Tompkins’ Athanor (2026), presented by Olga Korper Gallery, draws its title from the self-feeding furnace used by medieval alchemists in their attempts to produce the philosopher’s stone. The work approaches art-making as a process of continual becoming through accumulation, revision, erasure and discovery.

Canadian landscape is further explored in the Bistro through works by Alex Cameron, Karine Locatelli, Kyle Scheurmann and Robert Wiens, examining artists’ relationships with Canada’s forests. In the Café, works by Scott Everingham, David Trautrimas and Jake Kimble consider bodies of water and how they shape our experiences of place and self.

Art Toronto partners with its sister fair, Artist Project, to present Databells (2025), a free immersive kinetic sound installation by Ottawa-based artist Rich Loen in the lobby of the fair. Comprising 99 individually controlled bells, Databells translates statistical data into an evolving acoustic environment, transforming abstract information into physical sound. A winding installation invites visitors to move through the work and experience data as a spatial, physical and auditory phenomenon.

CONVERSATIONS SHAPING CANADA’S ART ECOSYSTEM

Throughout the weekend, Art Toronto’s Platform Talks bring together collectors, art dealers, curators and cultural leaders to explore the ideas and issues shaping contemporary art and its future.

On Friday at 1 PM, Curators in Conversation: Collaboration as Artistic and Institutional Development in the Work of Rouzbeh Akhbari, co-presented with the National Gallery of Canada’s National Engagement Initiative, brings together Ann Marie Peña of the National Gallery of Canada, Aamna Muzaffar of Mercer Union and Allison Glenn of the Toronto Biennial of Art.

The curators will discuss artist Rouzbeh Akhbari’s newly commissioned multimedia installation Of Wool and Diesel and consider how collaboration can support artistic and institutional development, collection building and new ways for contemporary art to engage communities across Canada.

Also on Friday, The Business of Art Galleries: Art Dealers in Conversation brings leading Canadian art dealers together for an open discussion about what it means to run a gallery in Canada today, the changing role of the art dealer and the future of the traditional gallery model.

On Saturday, A Growing Interest: Latin American Art in Canada brings together Karen Huber, Tamara Toledo and Jorge Lozano to trace the evolution of Latin American art in Canada, from the emergence of artistic communities in the 1970s and 1980s to today’s growing presence of artists, galleries, institutions and collectors.

Art Toronto is also working with Kate Wong, founder of SITE Toronto, to present Building a Stronger Arts Ecosystem, a four-part series considering the network of artists, arts workers, galleries, non-profit organizations, collectors, philanthropists, funders and audiences whose relationships collectively shape the vitality of a city’s arts landscape.

Through conversations including What is Art For?, What do Artists Need?, Arts Patronage — Beyond Collecting and Making Space for Art, the series will explore the structures, relationships and forms of support required to create the conditions in which artists and their communities can flourish.

MORE WAYS TO DISCOVER ART TORONTO

Curator and specialist-led tours throughout the weekend offer visitors another way to experience the fair.

Arte Sur, curated by Karen Huber, returns for its second edition, bringing together 11 galleries from Mexico, Central and South America, New York and Toronto. Huber will lead a daily tour at 4 PM, offering visitors deeper insight into participating artists and galleries.

On Friday, Haema Sivanesan, Director, Visual Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, leads a tour featuring recent alumni of the Banff Centre’s Visual Arts program and considering the role of residencies in artistic production.

Saturday features a printmaking tour with Laine and Jonathan Groneweg of Smokestack, while John Geoghegan, Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, leads a tour on Sunday.

The Art Dealers Association of Canada (ADAC) will also celebrate its 60th anniversary with tours of participating member galleries on Saturday and Sunday.

From encountering rare works by one of Canada’s most internationally recognized artists to learning how to make a first acquisition, Art Toronto’s 2026 program reflects the full continuum of collecting: discovering an artist, acquiring a work, building a collection and supporting the cultural ecosystem that allows artists and galleries to thrive.

Throughout the fair, Art Toronto VIPs will have access to the Intact VIP Lounge, a dedicated space for collectors, gallerists, artists and cultural leaders to connect throughout the weekend.

OPENING NIGHT BENEFIT

Art Toronto opens Thursday, October 29 with its annual Opening Night Benefit for the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Collectors, curators and cultural leaders will be among the first to experience and acquire works from the fair during Collectors First Look from 4–6 PM, before the celebration continues with Opening Night from 6–10 PM.

Every Opening Night ticket directly supports the McMichael Canadian Art Collection as the institution embarks on a landmark redevelopment of its building and grounds.