Torontonians, from teens on the town in the wee hours to selfie-snapping millennials and seasoned culture vultures, have embraced the annual all-night art thing like no other public event. As Nuit Blanche celebrates its 10th year on October 3, it just seems to get better.
Top on this year’s list is a program that aims to reverse the co-ordinates of the Americas, called HTOUS/HTRON (get it? Read backwards). Buenos Aires-based Agustin Pérez Rubio curates a list of international and local big names: Michael Snow collaborates with Argentina’s Claudio Caldini on a video of Caldini’s flight from Buenos Aires Luis Jacob’s Sphinx pavilion answers your questions about changing Toronto Puerto Rico’s Allora & Calzdilla, U.S. reps at a recent Venice Biennale, screen a film involving an ancient flute and a vulture New York-based Chilean artist/architect Alfredo Jaar’s music (Everything I Know I Learned The Day My Son Was Born) draws on Toronto newborns’ first cries Public Studio’s Elle Flander and Tamira Sawatzky collaborate in Zero Hour with Lebanon’s Etel Adnan to reflect on apocalyptic narratives.
But Pérez Rubio’s biggest coup is securing the participation of Cuba’s Tania Bruguera. The Cuban government was not amused when she tried to stage her open-mic performance Taitlin’s Whispers in Havana’s Revolution Square in 2014, confiscating her passport so she cannot leave her homeland and turning her into the latest art-world cause célèbre. Her Nuit Blanche project remains a mystery until October 3.
For the first time, an individual artist gets a multi-location platform, and it’s a fitting choice: JR, a TED prize-winning, globe-trotting Frenchman whose uncredited installations, usually involving large-scale photos of locals’ faces, have taken over streets worldwide. Black And White Night includes an interactive installation with a photo booth so people can add their own faces and videos about previous work.
Les Bouquets in Toronto by JR
A program on the theme of wind curated by Blackwood Gallery’s Christine Shaw features Nuit veterans like Jon Sasaki, Charles Stankievech, Los Carpinteros and Anandam Dancetheatre, whose rope-climbing performance was one of my highlights last year. In this year’s Glaciology, the dancers on Lake Shore East remain earthbound as they channel the flow of glaciers.
Beautfort 3: Glaciology, Anandam Dancetheatre
Local photographer/instigator Che Kothari commemorates the 10-year anniversary in 10 For 10th – Memory Lane, 10 projects co-produced by local cultural orgs on the theme of memory. Among them are Faisal Anwar’s new media installation drawing on the event’s photo archives, at Wychwood Barns Ekow Nimako’s giant LEGO barn owl at the Gardiner Museum and Annu Palakunnathu Matthew project on Indian call centre workers at the ROM. Independent projects riff on the theme of memory as well.
Silent Knight, Ekow Knight
The sponsored Special Projects roster includes installations by Olafur Eliasson at Union Station and An Te Liu at the Toronto Sculpture Garden.
No one can see everything, so it’s smart to map out a route on scotiabanknuitblanche.com. But keep in mind that unplanned, serendipitous discoveries are what the night is all about.
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