Introducing Kitty Scott, Curator of the Art Toronto Focus Exhibition

Kara Hamilton, Nothing is wild, 2019 (COOPER COLE)

Art Toronto 2023 Focus Exhibition
Good Foot Forward

October 26 – 29, 2023
Metro Toronto Convention Centre

Legendary curator Kitty Scott brings her unique vision to the Focus Exhibition, Good Foot Forward, at the upcoming 24th edition of Canada’s art fair, taking place October 26-29 in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Her decades-long career with leading art institutions makes Scott the most respected curator in Canada. The exhibition brings together contemporary artists who, through their diverse practices, share an address to the earthbound, using this force to reflect upon current forms of what constitutes a livable life. Earlier this week Art Toronto caught up with Scott to gain more insights into her approach for the Focus Exhibition.

What was your approach to curating the Focus exhibition at Art Toronto 2023?

I started by thinking about Duane Linklater’s I want to forget the english language (ulterior) 2020/2023. It is one of the first works you see as you enter the Focus space. Its ancestral and contemporary vocabulary speaks to the many contradictions of contemporary life. A series of domestic and industrial objects—tipi poles, a Tupperware container, a stone, a box and a museum dolly are stacked one on top of the other. They coalesce into a nomadic-looking form that points to different ways of living, making and caring. The dolly and the container, for example, are the tools used to carefully move fragile things. A chandelier dangles from the high side of the five diagonally arranged tipi poles. While the title of this work clearly builds resistance into the language of the sculpture, the weight of the chandelier appears almost negligible. Inexplicably, the sculpture wants to propel itself forward.

The tipi poles, at one end, touch the floor and this brings to the fore deep connections to the land and to ancestral activities such as hunting and fishing, along with Indigenous economies. It seems to ask “How are we to live today?” Much of my thinking expanded outward from how this work is constructed and the ideas it opens up.

Can you talk a bit about the title of the exhibition?

The title for this exhibition is Good Foot Forward. The foot is the part of the body that makes the most contact with ground or land. Many of the works in the exhibition pull the viewer’s attention downwards. As diverse people living here, we often find ourselves talking about the land, issues of sovereignty, ancestral knowledge, the political economy of real estate, the undersides of domesticity and more simply put, how we are living together. In the very best instances, these conversations are progressive and optimistic.

Read the full interview

Art Toronto 2023, Canada’s world-class art fair featuring galleries from across the world. This year’s celebration, on from 26 to 29 October at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, is bigger and better than ever, showcasing 110 galleries with works from renowned and emerging artists from Canada, the United States and abroad. The event starts with an opening night fundraising celebration on Thursday, October 26, in benefit of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

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