Toronto Biennial of Art to expand beyond the city for first time
The Toronto Biennial of Art will return this fall with a broader geographic reach and a sharper sense of urgency. Its fourth edition, Things Fall Apart, runs from September 26 to December 20, 2026, and will feature work by 30 artists and collectives, including 17 newly commissioned projects. For the first time, the biennial will extend beyond Toronto itself.
Curated by Allison Glenn, the edition is shaped by waterways, especially the Great Lakes and the Great Loop, the 6,000-mile network that links the eastern United States and part of Canada through inland and coastal routes. Glenn, who is based in Detroit, said the project treats water as both a material resource and a historical witness, one that connects distant places through shared systems and recurring ruptures.
That idea gives the biennial its conceptual spine. Glenn has described the title as a way to think about historical fracture and the present moment at once, noting that many participating artists are working amid wars and escalating conflicts in their home countries, including Lebanon and Iran. Among the artists and collectives included are Kent Monkman, Rebecca Belmore, Bonnie Devine, Dawoud Bey, Coco Fusco, Nani Chacon, Julien Creuzet, Brendan Fernandes, Dala Nasser, Antonio Obá, Solange Pessoa, Dawit L. Petros and Charisse Pearlina Weston.
The Toronto presentation will unfold across a wide range of institutions and public sites, including the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Aga Khan Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto Pearson Airport and Scarborough Gurdwara. The biennial’s reach will also extend to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax, the Musée des Beaux-arts de Montréal, Remai Modern in Saskatoon, the University of Victoria and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Outside Canada, the Anchorage Museum in Alaska will participate, and Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment program will turn New York’s Times Square into an evening display platform for TBA artists. Patrizia Libralato, the biennial’s director, said the organization aims to keep building access and cultural vitality while affirming that contemporary art belongs at the center of public life.
The expansion marks a notable step for a biennial that is still relatively young, but increasingly ambitious in scale and geography. By linking Toronto to other cities through water, transit and public space, Things Fall Apart suggests a model of biennial-making that is less fixed to one center than attentive to circulation, proximity and shared vulnerability.
