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The fourth Toronto Biennial of Art, curated by Allison Glenn, brings together more than 30 artists and collectives under the title “Things Fall Apart.” The exhibition uses the Great Lakes as a starting point to examine rupture, borders, memory and movement, with works shown in Toronto and, for the first time, at sites beyond the city. A review praises several installations while questioning whether rupture is a sufficiently broad frame for the exhibition.
The fourth Toronto Biennial of Art, titled Things Fall Apart and curated by Allison Glenn, brings more than 30 artists and collectives to Toronto and, for the first time, to sites outside the city, including Anchorage and Times Square. The exhibition takes the Great Lakes as its point of departure to explore rupture, borders, memory and movement through art, a theme that the review describes as provocative while questioning its reach.
The Biennial maintains the event’s established attention to water, but expands its geography beyond Toronto. Glenn’s exhibition connects the Great Lakes with histories of cross-border movement and displacement. The review situates that premise against strained Canada–United States relations, while the exhibition’s framing also invokes Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s description of the current moment as a “rupture, not a transition,” quoted in the Biennial catalogue.
Among the featured works, Dawoud Bey’s Material Histories, Living Landscapes at the Art Gallery of Ontario brings landscape photographs and a two-channel video together with objects from the museum’s collection with roots in Nigeria, Ghana and the Kingdom of Kongo. At the University of Toronto Art Centre, Antonio Obá’s Jardim uses brass bells that sound as visitors pass through, leading toward a painting that reimagines a photograph of Dorothy Counts integrating a Charlotte high school in 1957.
Other works link personal and inherited knowledge to place. Wen Liu’s steel-and-resin sculpture incorporates herbal medicines prescribed after her father’s death, while Taqralik Partridge’s installation revisits her grandmother’s journey across the Hudson Strait. At the Royal Ontario Museum, Raphaël Barontini’s textile installation connects Caribbean imagery to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. In Scarborough, Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu’s permanent structure at the Scarborough Gurdwara incorporates earth from Sirhind, Punjab, and is intended for simran, a Sikh practice of stillness and deep listening.
Art Across Borders and Memory
The Biennial’s multi-site format makes its themes of movement and borders part of the exhibition’s structure, not only its subject matter. Its first presentation beyond Toronto brings the project into other places, while the Great Lakes provide a shared geographic frame for works addressing migration, slavery, Indigenous histories, ecological loss and spiritual practice.
The review’s account also points to a tension in the curatorial premise. It finds the strongest works use rupture as an opening for imaginative encounters with history, rather than treating the past as a settled record. But it questions whether the exhibition’s emphasis on rupture can hold the range of work on view. That tension matters to visitors because it shapes how varied artistic practices are connected—and what the exhibition asks audiences to see as common among them.
Toronto Biennial of Art Things Fall Apart exhibition catalogue
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A Biennial Framed by Water
The Toronto Biennial has maintained a focus on water across editions. For this edition, Glenn turns to the Great Lakes, a region that spans the Canada–United States border and connects the exhibition’s Toronto base to a wider geography. The 2026 event includes more than 30 artists and collectives and adds sites beyond Toronto, including Anchorage, Alaska, and Times Square in New York.
The review draws on Carney’s remark at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the world is “in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” That wording appears in the Biennial catalogue and helps frame the exhibition’s interest in histories of separation and change. It is a curatorial lens, not a claim that all the artists’ works share one interpretation.
“A provocative and discursive exploration of how artists respond to our late-capitalist epoch, but its focus on ‘rupture’ raises questions.”
— Hyperallergic review of the Biennial
Great Lakes art and photography books
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The Limits of the Rupture Frame
The source review does not provide a full account of every artist or venue, and the supplied report ends during its discussion of a final group of works. It is therefore unclear from this material how the exhibition’s remaining installations develop or complicate its central theme.
The review also raises, but does not resolve, whether rupture is broad enough to connect the Biennial’s diverse practices. The available source does not establish how audiences or the artists themselves interpret that curatorial frame, nor does it provide details about attendance or the exhibition’s full schedule.
Dawoud Bey photography books landscape
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Visitors Encounter the Wider Exhibition
Visitors can encounter the Biennial across its Toronto venues and the newly added sites outside the city. The review’s account points to works at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the University of Toronto Art Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Scarborough Gurdwara, alongside installations in Anchorage and Times Square. The available source does not state closing dates or provide a complete venue schedule.
As the exhibition continues, its central question remains whether the idea of rupture can connect its historical, personal and spiritual works without flattening their differences. Further details about the remaining works and the Biennial’s programme are not included in the source report.
Underground Railroad history books Harriet Tubman
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Key Questions
What is the Toronto Biennial of Art’s 2026 theme?
The fourth edition is titled Things Fall Apart and explores rupture, with the Great Lakes as a point of departure.
Who curated this edition?
Allison Glenn curated the 2026 Biennial.
Where is the Biennial taking place?
It is based in Toronto and, for the first time, includes sites beyond the city, including Anchorage and Times Square. The source names several Toronto venues but does not give a complete schedule.
Which artists and works are highlighted in the review?
The review discusses work by Dawoud Bey, Antonio Obá, Wen Liu, Taqralik Partridge, Raphaël Barontini and Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu, among others.
What criticism does the review raise?
The review praises the exhibition’s engagement with history and artistic practice but questions whether its emphasis on rupture is an adequate frame for the range of work on view.
Source: rss
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