BARBARA FISCHER is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of the Art Gallery, University of Toronto, as well as Director of and Senior Lecturer in the Master of Visual Studies Curatorial Studies in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.
Her curatorial work focuses on contemporary art and its histories, encompassing the internationally acclaimed retrospective exhibition General Idea Editions 1967-1995; Projections (2007), the first major survey on projection-based works in the history of contemporary art in Canada; and, the multi-partnered survey of conceptual art in Canada (Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980) which premiered at the University of Toronto Galleries in the fall of 2010 and toured nationally and internationally through 2014.
She is the recipient of the 2008 Hnatyshyn Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art, and was appointed commissioner and curator of Mark Lewis’ project of the Canadian Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009.