Toronto Star: The best art of 2025 in Toronto

By Bandon Kaufman, Special to the Star

December 18, 2025

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[Condensed version, read the full article here]

In a year when much of Toronto’s art was, fatally, just fine, these were the three highlights

Despite everything, the arts scene in Toronto remains vibrant. 

A friend recently asked if I thought 2025 was a good year for art in Toronto. “Well,” I started with a sigh, before offering an entirely avoidant answer.

I really did not know the answer to that question. There was good art and bad art and a distressing amount of art that was, fatally, just fine. I noticed certain trends: more painters interested in the idiom of classical abstract expressionism, for one.

There were heated, panicked debates about AI (with surprisingly few interesting artistic responses to it!). A couple of galleries opened; new artists began to show.

As I look back on 2025 in its last weeks, what comes into focus is that, despite everything, the arts scene in Toronto remains vibrant and that, in itself, makes it a good year. Here are three highlights of 2025.

Everything and Nothing: Kelly Mark

The Toronto-based conceptual artist Kelly Mark, who died in February 2025, worked across performance, installation, drawing and sound, among other media. Her work dealt with the rigorous repetition of everyday life; in her piece “I really should …” (2002), Mark listed a thousand things she meant to do. She reflected back to us a vision of contemporary human life as a series of terrifyingly banal routines, but she located in them room for playfulness, experimentation and creation. The aptly titled “Everything and Nothing,” a multi-site survey of her work hosted by Olga Korper Gallery, was a highlight of the year.