CBC: Contempory Art Collecting | "Art contemporain: collectionner n’est pas une pratique réservée aux riches"

Nia Centre's Alica Hall sat down with CBC Radio-Canada to discuss A Black Art Fair 2025 and building a community of Art Collectors for today.

Check out the full French report here.

Also, check out the English translation below.

Contemporary Art: Collecting Isn’t a Practice Reserved for the Wealthy

Events are encouraging direct purchases from emerging artists, such as the Black Art Fair taking place in Toronto this weekend.

Since the year 2000, on the weekend before Halloween, the Queen City has hosted Art Toronto, a large contemporary art fair where major galleries from coast to coast flaunt their finest works to attract wealthy collectors. At the booths of the most prestigious institutions, one often finds museum-quality pieces that are as sensational as they are unattainable.

The Nia Centre for the Arts, located in the Little Jamaica neighbourhood, takes advantage of this artistic fervor to organize its own Black Art Fair, where collectors with modest budgets can buy works from Afro-descendant visual artists. For art lovers visiting the downtown fair, it’s also an opportunity to extend their visual appetite with an event held in a historically rich district.

This year, nearly thirty artists from across Canada have been invited to present their work inside the Oakwood Avenue building. For the occasion, the Nia Centre’s space has been completely transformed. One of the studios has even been turned into a living room, recreating the intimate atmosphere of a home to help visitors imagine how artworks—priced between $250 and $7,000—might look in their own spaces.

Fair Prices for Artworks?

The Black Art Fair’s selection is curated by co-curators Anthony Gebrehiwot and Alica Hall. The latter is also the centre’s executive director—and a collector herself. Among the works on view—paintings, photographs, and sculptures—artistic quality is the primary criterion, followed by the message and story each piece seeks to convey, explains Hall. There’s also a desire to highlight emerging creators who struggle to exhibit in conventional spaces.

But if one of the fair’s key arguments is to attract potential collectors through affordable prices, how can artists be sure the process doesn’t devalue their work?

Hall is confident. “The exhibitors are guided in how to sell and determine the value of their work—time and effort are taken into account,” she says. “But for many of them, this is their first sale, and they know they won’t start at $5,000.”

Betting on Emerging Artists

Investing in emerging visual artists is a strategy shared by other established institutions. Jane Corkin, owner of the eponymous gallery since 1979, continues—after nearly fifty years in the field—to seek out and support young graduates from art schools. “We showcase some every year, particularly through group exhibitions,” she explains.

Building Confidence
Does starting an art collection mean being a risk-taker and betting on unknown names? There are other approaches, such as the secondary market. The Caviar20 gallery specializes in works that have already appeared on the market—online or at auction houses.

Inside its Dupont Street shop, pieces by Joyce Wieland, Edward Burtynsky, and Salvador Dalí are sold at accessible prices, sometimes for just a few hundred dollars. These are indeed original works, but in reproducible media—photographs, lithographs, or small drawings, for instance.

For gallery owner Troy Seidman, this represents a “double trust strategy.” He targets both financially comfortable buyers, for whom a $2,500 purchase isn’t much, and more modest ones, who feel reassured purchasing a work by a famous name.

Famous artists’ willingness to produce their own reproductions also encourages the Black Art Fair’s organizers to invite exhibitors to offer prints or editions. Hall believes such works provide an accessible entry point for the community. “Just as artists must start with reasonable prices and build up gradually, collectors should do the same,” she adds.

Bringing Beauty Home
Buying art also means acquiring its physical presence and, in a sense, giving it life in the real world. Even though much of his business is conducted online, Troy Seidman constantly reminds buyers that art exists beyond the screen.

For Alica Hall, “art is a way of bringing beauty—and a part of yourself—into your space before going further. What we display at home reflects what we want to say about ourselves.”

Seidman believes collecting goes beyond decoration. It develops, he says, “when every wall is full and you keep buying.” Building a collection, he adds, takes time—it doesn’t happen in a few days or weeks.

Advice for Emerging Collectors
How can beginners make their first purchases without fear of getting it wrong? Hall encourages new enthusiasts to build relationships directly with artists—through events like the Black Art Fair or others held throughout Toronto during the year, such as The Artist Project or the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair.

Corkin’s advice is simple: if you fall in love with a piece, don’t hesitate to buy it—even if it means paying in installments. “That’s what I did when I left university,” she recalls. “I bought my first artwork and paid for it over a long period. I never regretted it.”

All the interviewees agree on one essential point: you must find your taste—your inner voice, your aesthetic intuition. This comes from visiting museums and galleries frequently. “Develop your eye,” says Seidman. Hall adds, “Art is like sports: the more you look, the more you build an instinctive understanding.”

And if money is an issue? Corkin concludes, “Money disappears anyway—so you might as well spend it on something that feeds your soul.”

The Black Art Fair at the Nia Centre for the Arts takes place on October 25 and 26.

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Hadrien Volle, Ph.D. Critique et journaliste culturel
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