Art Toronto

Jill Greenberg, O'Born Contemporary

Art Toronto, which started today, is Canada's only international art fair. The fair features about 110 galleries, 30% of which attend from outside Canada.

This year the fair hosted Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) from Beijing. The center is founded by Baron and Baroness Guy and Myriam Ullens de Schooten, prominent Swiss collectors. The UCCA offered limited edition prints by renowned Chinese artists, such as Yue Minjun, shown below.

Portraits by Alex Katz seemed to be popular, with pieces shown at multiple galleries. The one shown below is from Miriam Shiell Fine Art.

Takashi Murakami's alter ego DOB made an appearance in a limited edition print at Tokyo's Tezukayama Gallery.

I thought the painting below was a Roy Lichtenstein from his Mirror series, but it turned out to be a piece by the writer/artist Douglas Coupland, shown at Daniel Faria Gallery.

There was a Roy Lichtenstein however, in yet another limited edition print, at Galerie Raphael from Frankfurt.

The most interesting artwork seemed to be presented by galleries in the NEXT section of the fair, dedicated to emerging artists. Mitsuo Kimura's painting shown below, by LE Gallery, represented the exciting work of new artists at the fair. Mitsuo is a Japanese artist who recenlty moved to Canada. His art is influenced by Japanese anime, layered with his challenging experience of adapting to a new culture and language, expressed in bold color and painstaking detail. The name of the painting sums up his experience: Emotional Ocean.