"TORONTO — Aptly titled Precarious Joys, the third edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) casts its gaze on this moment of global political turmoil and the fragile state of the world. Curated by Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López, the exhibition, spread across 11 venues around the city, brings together more than 35 artists and collectives from Canada via the Caribbean and Asia, from Latin and South America, and across the globe, to reflect on pressing social, political, and ecological issues such as land preservation, the relationships between beings and places, wastelands, resistance, identity, and movement. The Biennial is premised on six key directives that artists cited in a series of dialogues with curators: joy, precarity, home, polyphony, solace, and “coded” (as in expressing themselves in an indirect way). Through these terms, the exhibition “encapsulates how the artists’ practices amplify political consciousness and the power of aesthetics in shaping collective life,” as per Fontaine and López’s curatorial statement."
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"Group exhibitions held at Auto BLDG, 32 Lisgar Street, and Collision Gallery demonstrate the sustained dialogue between artists and curators that is part of collectivity in the arts. At Collision Gallery, Tessa Mars (“All Islands Touch,” 2024) and Rajni Perera (“Joyous Procession / Infinite Serpent,” 2024) present paintings addressing displacement due to the devastation of ecosystems. Both works portray morphed humans moving through an incongruous landscape, where air, earth, and water are no longer as clearly delineated as what we navigate today. Ahmed Umar’s “Truth Bears No Scandal (الـواضِح مو فـاضِح)” (2024) and Citra Sasmita’s “Timur Merah Project XII: Light Speed and Revelation” show how the past invariably coexists with the present. Umar revisits classic Sudanese songs written about same-sex lovers and injects joy and fun to queer stories that would otherwise be violently criminalized. Suspended in the middle gallery, the installation, comprised of paintings on traditional Kamasan canvas, neon lamps, and python snakeskin, articulates how Balinese myths have the same relevance as modern Western truths."
