Dominique Fontaine is curator for the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art. She graduated in visual arts and arts administration from the University of Ottawa (Canada), and completed De Appel Curatorial Programme (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). Dominique’s recent projects include Imaginaires souverains, Le présent, modes d’emploi, Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto; Foire en art actuel de Québec 2020; Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art; Dineo Seshee Bopape: and- in. the light of this._______, Darling Foundry; Repérages ou À la découverte de notre monde ou Sans titre, articule; Between the earth and the sky, the possibility of everything, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto 2014. She is co-author and co-editor of the publication Making History: Visual Arts and Blackness in Canada (2023).
Dominique is co-initiator of the Black Curators Forum; is a member of AICA-Canada, the American Association of Museum Curators (AAMC,) and of the International Contemporary Art Curators Association (IKT); and is also part of Intervals Collective. Dominique Fontaine is laureate of Black History Month of the City of Montreal 2021.
Public talk with curators of the Toronto Biennial, Dominique Fontaine & Miguel A. López
As part of our ongoing International Visitor Programme (IVP), we are pleased to host Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López, curators of the Toronto Biennial 2024, and invite you to a public talk at OCA on 20th June. During the talk, Fontaine and López will be speaking about their previous curatorial work, and approaches to exhibition-making.
Fontaine will present from the publication, Making History:Visual Arts and Blackness in Canada (2023). This publication complements and expands upon reflections initiated by the exhibition, 'Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art' (2018) held at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
López will present on his long-standing collaboration with the poet, artist, and feminist activist Cecilia Vicuña. The collaborations have materialized in two recent traveling retrospective exhibitions entitled 'Cecilia Vicuña. Seehearing the Enlightened Failure' (2019-2022), and 'Cecilia Vicuña. Dreaming Water' (2023-2025).
Photo: 'Cecilia Vicuña. Seehearing the Enlightened Failure' at the MUAC-UNAM, Mexico City, 2020. Courtesy MUAC-UNAM.
Miguel A. López is a writer and curator. In his practice, he focuses on the role of art in politics and public life, collective work and collaborative dynamics, and queer and feminist rewritings of history. He is the Curator for the 2024 edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art. From 2015 to 2020, he worked as Chief curator, and later Co-director at TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica. In 2019, he curated the retrospective exhibition “Cecilia Vicuña: Seehearing the Enlightened Failure” at the Witte de With (now Kunstinstituut Melly), Rotterdam, which traveled to Mexico City, Madrid, and Bogota. Other recent curatorial projects include "Sila Chanto & Belkis Ramírez: Aquí me quedo / Here I Stay" en el ICA-VCU, Richmond (2022), “Hard To Swallow. Anti-Patriarchal Poetics and New Scene in the Nineties” at ICPNA, Lima (2021), "And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?" at the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2021), and "21 Bienal de Arte Contemporânea SESC_Videobrasil. Comunidades Imaginadas" at SESC, São Paulo (2019). He is the author of Ficciones disidentes en la tierra de la misoginia [Dissident Fictions in the Land of Misogyny] (2019), and co-editor of The Words of Others: León Ferrari and Rhetoric in Times of War (2017). His texts have been published in journals such as Afterall, Artforum, e-flux Journal, Art in America, Journal of Visual Culture, Manifesta Journal. He was a recipient of the 2016 ICI's Independent Vision Curatorial Award.