Barbara Fischer

Barbara Fischer (born November 4, 1956) is an art curator and writer who specializes in contemporary art in all media with an emphasis on sculpture, installation, and projection/lens-based work. She serves as the director and chief curator of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. The Toronto Star called her the "unassuming nuclear reactor of the Toronto arts scene", adding that she is "doing seemingly impossible work that, at the same time, is both vital and otherwise neglected: building a memory bank of artistic expression in a city plagued with willful amnesia."

Career Fischer was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, the eldest of ten children and attended the Rudolf Steiner School, Bochum-Langendreer, Germany. She moved to Canada in 1976 and studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts Summer school. She received her BFA, University of Victoria (1982) and her MA from York University (1999).

Fischer changed curatorial positions every two or three years in the early part of her career. She was the curator of film and visual arts at the Open Space Gallery in Victoria, BC (1981–1983), assistant curator at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, AB (1983–1985), assistant curator of contemporary Canadian and international art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1985–1988), and curator of contemporary art at The Power Plant, Toronto (1988–1990). From 1999 to 2002, she was the curator of the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga and its director/curator from 2002 to 2005.

Curatorial work Fischer has curated or co-curated roughly 100 exhibitions on contemporary art which have travelled nationally or internationally, The Toronto Star called it a "definitive history". Kent Monkman – Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (2017), which was a major curatorial project by Toronto based artist Kent Monkman produced in conjunction with the Sesquicentennial of Confederation. It toured nationally to eight venues and won the OAAG 2017 Exhibition of the Year Award (Budget over $50,000), the OAAG 2017 Exhibition Installation and Design Award and the Canadian Museums Association 2018 Outstanding Achievement (Exhibition). Robert Enright said the show was "the most radical rethinking of the way our society functions any artist has accomplished in the 150 years since Confederation....When you see 'Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience' and actually take at face value what the exhibition is telling us, you cannot be the same person coming out as you were going in.... My projection is it will emerge as the most important exhibition organized by any Canadian museum in this anniversary year". The Guardian called it "The country's most talked about art exhibit"; Isuma, Canadian Pavillion, 58th Venice Biennale (2019), as part of a five member team, which was a presentation of the Isuma Collective (Igloolik filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn). C Magazine said "Isuma encourages immersion here to consider not only the injustices within Inuit and Canadian relations, but the value of countering them through collaboration and Inuit self-determination".

Writing Fischer has written essays in books on the topic of contemporary curatorial practice, such as, 'Negotiations: Curatorial Practice', (in "Naming A Practice"), 'Top Ten' (in "Raising Frankenstein"), and most recently, in 'The Next 25 years: Propositions for the Future of Curatorial Studies' (in "Great Expectations: Prospects for the Future of Curatorial Education"); as well as edited and written introductions for numerous independent and exhibition-related publications such as "foodculture: Tasting Identities and Geographies in Art" (YYZ Books: 1999), "Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto" (Art Museum and Blackdog Press: 2020) with Luis Jacob; "Kent Monkman: Shame and Prejudice" (Art Museum and Blackdog Press: 2020) (translations to French and Cree); and "General Idea Editions 1967–1995", Catalog Raisonne. Her essays in books include "On Language in Conceptual Art', in "Conceptual Lines", proceedings from the international conference organized by the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts, CAFA, as well as many articles and reviews. 2008 OAAG Exhibition Award ("Projections"); 2008 Canada's Representation at the 53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Awarded for "Mark Lewis: Cold Morning" by the Canada Council for the Arts (2009); 2008 Hnatyshyn Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art: 2009 OAAG Colleague of the Year Award; 2013 CMA Outstanding Exhibition Award (co-curated exhibition “Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada”); 2015 OAAG Art Publication Award ("Kelly Mark: Everything is Interesting"); 2017 OAAG Exhibition of the Year Award (Budget over $50,000) ("Kent Monkman - Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience"); 2018 Canadian Museums Association (CMA) 2018 Outstanding Achievement ("Kent Monkman - Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience"); 2019 (co-curated exhibition "Isuma"); 2018 Canada's Representation at the 58rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia; 2021 Chevalier de L’ordre des arts et des lettres, Ministry of Culture, France; 2022 President's Impact Award, University of Toronto