I’m not sure when it happened, but the Toronto International Art Fair (TIAF) has been renamed “Art Toronto”. So instead of writing “I’m at TIAF”, people will now be typing “I’m at AT”
“At AT?”
Yes.
“You’re at AT?”
Yes.
The confusion will really set in when Star Wars nerds start having these conversations.
“At AT? AT-AT?, You’re a gigantic robot walking the surface of Hoth in search of rebel troops?”
Anyway, this is the event’s 11th year, and this is the 8th one that I have attended.
Before I write about my experience with this show, I want to write about my past experiences with it. (and I’m writing this part the night before seeing the show)
The first time I went I was completely blown away by the amount of art. I had never attended an art fair anywhere near that scale, and the experience was quite overwhelming, and mentally exhausting.
This was a high school school trip, so I was under strict time constraints, and had to make a certain number of notes and sketches. (Which I still have with me today) Since this experience occurred before going to University, I was still unaware of the great divide between art that gets written about by academics, and art that someone would actually want to purchase. I just saw it as art to look at, think about, and enjoy.
As time went on, and I saw more and more shows, I became more aware of the difference between blatantly commercial fine art, and the more non-commercial intellectual, academic-wet-dream art. I began checking out shows at artist run centres and non-profit art centres in the days before and after TIAF, so I could make easy comparisons between market-driven work, and the other stuff that artists are making outside of the commercial world. That doesn’t mean TIAF is blatantly commercial; this Art fair does not completely exclude some of the more conceptual work. Interesting installations line the edges of the fair.
Continue reading Art Toronto 2010 Review