Exhibitions in Toronto
October 2026
October 2026 at a glance: 9 exhibitions opened, 7 closed, and 27 more were on view across the city.
Opened in October
Bharti Kher: Bones4 OctMuseum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA)
Fifteen years of Bharti Kher's assemblages: sari-clad hybrid figures, stone and concrete forms and bindi-covered paintings, with a monumental new tondo.
Delcy Morelos: Ombligo4 OctMuseum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA)
A site-specific installation by Colombian artist Delcy Morelos: sisal rope, soil and Toronto-harvested corn roots swell from the ceiling of Floor 2.
Beverly Glenn-Copeland: Light of the Heavens4 OctMuseum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA)
The South Stairwell Sound Series plays a recently recovered c.1986 song by Canadian composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland, from the Keyboard Fantasies era.
After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics9 OctGardiner Museum
PJ Anderson, Eddy Firmin, Manuel Mathieu and Sharon Norwood use clay to explore Caribbean diaspora memory, identity and belonging, in partnership with BAND and MoAD.
Saks Afridi: SpaceMosque24 OctAga Khan Museum
Saks Afridi's speculative sci-fi narrative uses recovered artifacts, sound and archives to trace a mysterious vessel said to answer collective prayers.
Owner of a Lonely Heart24 OctThe Power Plant Contemporary Art GalleryFree
An 80-minute looping film program by Haig Aivazian, Stephanie Comilang, Alia Farid, Hope Pearl Strickland and Yuyan Wang on labour, ecosystems and commodities.
Sharon Lockhart: Fogo24 OctThe Power Plant Contemporary Art GalleryFree
Sharon Lockhart's Fogo Island Portrait Studio photographs and the film installation WINDWARD, a long, attentive look at Newfoundland's Fogo Island and its people.
Zadie Xa with Benito Mayor Vallejo: Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything24 OctThe Power Plant Contemporary Art GalleryFree
Paintings, murals, sound and a conch-shaped mobile of 600+ brass bells weave Korean mythology, diaspora and marine ecology into a multi-sensory installation.
- Molly Steels: I Am/Was/Always28 Oct
The Image CentreFree
Family archives, pressed flowers and a lakeside video explore grief, mortality and the women who came before. Student Gallery.
Closed in October
- Journey of the Mind4 Oct
Campbell House MuseumFreePast
Touring show by without SHAPE without FORM, a Toronto Biennial Parallel Project: contemporary art and short films on Sikh teachings about the mind, by 24 artists.
Diego Marcon: The Bubble Boy4 OctArt Gallery of OntarioPast
The Italian filmmaker's Canadian debut: unsettling, tender films using CGI, prosthetics and robotics, centred on his newest work Krapfen (2025).
Second Life: Sustainable Textiles Showcase4 OctTextile Museum of CanadaPast
A community exhibition of works made in the museum's free Second Life workshops, exploring sustainable craft and textile making as creative responses to the climate crisis.
Stolen Childhoods5 OctRoyal Ontario MuseumPast
Survivor-led exhibition on the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Canada's longest-running Indian Residential School, through archives, photos and interviews.
BEES: A Story of Survival18 OctRoyal Ontario MuseumPast
Immersive art-meets-science show by National Museums Liverpool and sculptor Wolfgang Buttress tracing 120 million years of bee adaptation and survival.
- Madison Chow: Overflow18 Oct
The Image CentreFreePast
Camera-less lumen prints made at the shoreline, letting lake and ocean water etch their own portraits onto photographic paper. Student Gallery.
The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art18 OctArt Gallery of OntarioPast
Canadian debut of the Dallas Museum of Art's survey of Impressionism and its legacy, with Monet, Morisot, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Gauguin, Matisse, Mondrian and Munch.
Was on view in October
body — mind — distanceto 7 NovGallery 44 Centre for Contemporary PhotographyFree
In the Vitrines, Sabrina Vachon explores how diasporic bodies are perceived in different places, and the psychic distance between body and memory.
Static and Noiseto 7 NovGallery 44 Centre for Contemporary PhotographyFree
Aliyah Aziz, Bret Parenteau, Kite and Nathan Ivanco treat image noise as audio noise, drawing on punk, noise and DIY music scenes to make distorted, glitchy work.
From the Laurentian Highlands to a Higher Placeto 7 NovGallery 44 Centre for Contemporary PhotographyFree
WOO SEE-MING photographs his late mother's Quebec village in the Laurentians, a pilgrimage in which time, sadness, love and joy collapse into one.
Magnus Hara: The Light of Dayto 8 NovGardiner Museum
Vases by 2024 Gardiner Museum Prize winner Magnus Hara, altering and combining familiar forms as a reclamation of joy and autonomy after grief, loss and injury.
- Tanya Marcuse: Portentto 5 Dec
The Image CentreFree
A multichannel video of ominous natural scenes, from swaying trees to volcanic vapour, on the New Media Wall, drawn from Marcuse's Book of Miracles series.
- Richard Avedon Immortal: Portraits of Aging, 1951–2004to 5 Dec
The Image CentreFree
Nearly 100 Avedon portraits confronting aging, from Toni Morrison to the Dalai Lama, plus a restaging of his 1974 MoMA series on his father Jacob Israel Avedon.
Psychedelics: Art. Culture. Science.to 6 DecRoyal Ontario Museum
A research-driven look at the cultural, historical and scientific significance of psychedelics through artworks, objects, botanical specimens and interactives.
Things Fall Apartto 20 DecArt Museum at the University of TorontoFree
The fourth Toronto Biennial of Art, curated by Allison Glenn, explores rupture through the Great Lakes and global waterways, across both campus galleries.
In Search of Imperfection: The Macdonald Collection of Japanese and Japanese-Inspired Ceramicsto 31 DecGardiner Museum
The Macdonald Collection shown in full for the first time: early Edo-period Japanese porcelain and Japanese-inspired ceramics, explored through nature, leisure and global trade.
Crawford Lake: Layers in Timeto 3 Jan 2027Royal Ontario Museum
How sediments of a small lake near Milton, Ontario record 1,000 years of human impact, making it the "golden spike" candidate for the Anthropocene.
Critical Minerals: Critical Choicesto 3 Jan 2027Royal Ontario Museum
Gallery installation in Earth's Treasures on the minerals essential to a net-zero society, and the lifestyle choices tied to them.
Always In Fashionto 3 Jan 2027Textile Museum of Canada
Curated by Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, an immersive look at how contemporary Indigenous couturiers blend ancestral knowledge with innovation, featuring Kent Monkman, Brian Jungen and more.
Rouzbeh Akhbari: Of Wool and Dieselto 23 Jan 2027Mercer Union, a Centre for Contemporary ArtFree
A film installation tracing sheep smuggling and seafaring histories along a trade corridor from Azerbaijan to Oman, with archival material and handmade felt works.
Returning to Ourselves: Rebecca Baird and Kenny Alvin Baird—A Retrospective of Art and Design by Cree Métis Siblingsto 30 Jan 2027Onsite Gallery (OCAD University)Free
Forty years of sculpture, painting, traditional materials, interior and graphic design, film art direction and public art by Cree Métis siblings Rebecca and Kenny Baird.
Michael Massie: now and thento 30 Jan 2027Onsite Gallery (OCAD University)Free
Career survey of Inuk silversmith and sculptor Michael Massie: iconic teapots, unexhibited pieces and new large-scale installations full of joy and humour.
Chinese Zodiac Case: Year of the Horseto 31 Jan 2027Royal Ontario Museum
ROM's annual zodiac installation marks the Year of the Horse with horse figures from early China, once placed in tombs to serve the dead.
Made By Many: 50 Years of the Textile Museum of Canadato 1 Feb 2027Textile Museum of Canada
A 50th-anniversary show tracing five decades of exhibitions back to the 1970s, with works by Bev Koski, Marimekko, Melinda Patterson, Thor Hansen, You Wenfeng and more.
Northumberlandto 20 Feb 2027Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary PhotographyFree
Boxing photographer Pete Doherty weaves ring images with photos of his dying parents and their Ontario town into a portrait of a life remade by loss.
Spotlight: Spanish Holbein Carpetto 21 Feb 2027Aga Khan Museum
A 15th-century carpet from Alcaraz, Spain, on loan from MFA Boston, where Muslim weavers blended Turkish designs with Iberian techniques.
Jeanne Randolph with John Monteith, Fabulous Neoconstantinopolitanismto 6 Mar 2027The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University (formerly AGYU)Free
Randolph's recluse La Betty staged with Vasarely, Albers and Motherwell from York's collection and a rug by John Monteith. Visible Vault; fully open Wed and Sat.
Torkwase Dyson: The Distance Inside Us (Bird and Lava)to 6 Mar 2027The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University (formerly AGYU)Free
Across all three galleries, Torkwase Dyson's painting, sculpture, drawing and animation use abstract "Hypershapes" to explore liberation, confinement and ecological crisis.
André Perugia: A Design Legend Unveiledto 4 Apr 2027Bata Shoe Museum
Over 95 designs by André Perugia (1893-1977), pioneer of the stiletto heel, made for Dior, Schiaparelli, Josephine Baker and other clients.
Toronto Biennial of Art at the Aga Khan Museumto 11 Apr 2027Aga Khan MuseumFree
Contemporary works from the Toronto Biennial of Art 2026 across the park, atrium, façade and galleries, including Dawit L. Petros. Free to visit.
Retracing Tatreez: Palestinian Thobes through the 20th Centuryto 2 May 2027Textile Museum of Canada
Palestinian embroidered thobes and jellayeh from the collection, most shown for the first time, curated by Nina Rafique with restored context on their regional motifs and journeys.
Over and Over Againto 17 Jun 2027Art Museum at the University of TorontoFree
Carol-Ann Apilado, Kuh Del Rosario, Sukaina Kubba and Esmelyn Miranda Orozco use weaving to probe broken patterns. At the Jackman Humanities Institute, Mon–Fri 9–4.
Dawoud Bey: Material Histories, Living Landscapesto 4 Jul 2027Art Gallery of Ontario
Dawoud Bey's landscape photographs and the two-channel video 350,000 meditate on North American land and Black diasporic history, with works from the AGO's Frum Collection.
Kamrooz Aram: Lapis Interventionto 11 Jul 2027Aga Khan Museum
Artist Kamrooz Aram co-curates a gallery intervention setting his lapis-blue Arabesque paintings among collection works to challenge Eurocentric display.
Image credits
38
- Bharti Kher: BonesCourtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA)
- Delcy Morelos: OmbligoPhoto: LF Documentation
- Beverly Glenn-Copeland: Light of the HeavensCourtesy of the artist, Third Side Music Inc., and Transgressive Records
- After the Island: Caribbean Canadian CeramicsCourtesy of Gardiner Museum
- Saks Afridi: SpaceMosqueCourtesy of Aga Khan Museum
- Owner of a Lonely HeartCourtesy the artist.
- Sharon Lockhart: Fogo© Sharon Lockhart, 2025
- Zadie Xa with Benito Mayor Vallejo: Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers EverythingCourtesy the artists and Thaddaeus Ropac. Photo: Eva Herzog.
- Diego Marcon: The Bubble BoyCourtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario
- Second Life: Sustainable Textiles ShowcaseCourtesy of Textile Museum of Canada
- Stolen ChildhoodsCourtesy of Royal Ontario Museum
- BEES: A Story of SurvivalCourtesy of Royal Ontario Museum
- The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of ArtCourtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario
- body — mind — distanceCourtesy of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
- Static and NoiseCourtesy of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
- From the Laurentian Highlands to a Higher PlaceCourtesy of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
- Magnus Hara: The Light of DayCourtesy of Gardiner Museum
- Psychedelics: Art. Culture. Science.Courtesy of Royal Ontario Museum
- Things Fall ApartCourtesy of Art Museum at the University of Toronto
- In Search of Imperfection: The Macdonald Collection of Japanese and Japanese-Inspired CeramicsCourtesy of Gardiner Museum
- Crawford Lake: Layers in Time© Craig Smith, 2023
- Critical Minerals: Critical Choices©ROM
- Always In FashionPhoto by Darren Rigo.
- Rouzbeh Akhbari: Of Wool and DieselCourtesy of Mercer Union, a Centre for Contemporary Art
- Returning to Ourselves: Rebecca Baird and Kenny Alvin Baird—A Retrospective of Art and Design by Cree Métis SiblingsPhoto by Luca Dichio
- Michael Massie: now and thenCourtesy of Fehely Fine Arts, photo by Renzo Fernandez
- Chinese Zodiac Case: Year of the HorseCourtesy of Royal Ontario Museum
- Made By Many: 50 Years of the Textile Museum of CanadaPhoto by Darren Rigo
- NorthumberlandImage courtesy of the artist
- Spotlight: Spanish Holbein CarpetPhotograph © 2026 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Jeanne Randolph with John Monteith, Fabulous NeoconstantinopolitanismCourtesy of The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University (formerly AGYU)
- Torkwase Dyson: The Distance Inside Us (Bird and Lava)Photograph: Richard Gary, courtesy Pace Gallery
- André Perugia: A Design Legend UnveiledCourtesy of Bata Shoe Museum
- Toronto Biennial of Art at the Aga Khan MuseumCourtesy of the Artist and Bradley Ertaskiran
- Retracing Tatreez: Palestinian Thobes through the 20th CenturyCourtesy of Textile Museum of Canada
- Over and Over AgainCourtesy of Art Museum at the University of Toronto
- Dawoud Bey: Material Histories, Living LandscapesCourtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario
- Kamrooz Aram: Lapis InterventionKamrooz Aram, Pejman Family Collection
Stay in the loop on Toronto
A short note now and then when something new opens worth your time.