What NOW loved and hated at this year’s Nuit Blanche.
Wasted West End
I like Nuit Blanche more than many folks, if only because when I see the general public actually engaging with contemporary art on a mass level it makes me think that maybe it wasn’t a complete waste going to school for conceptual art. However, you’d think after five years the event would be able to find a better way of showcasing the vibrant West End art scene than just this.
Most of the Queen West galleries were barely (if at all) participating this year, and Trinity Bellwoods also looked depressingly desolate this year. Sure, there were hundreds of people in the park looking for art, but not a hell of a lot there to see. Especially compared to previous years, when the wide open space hosted some of the most memorable pieces.
Talk about wasted space – meanwhile the sidewalks in the area were virtually impassable due to the flood of drunk partiers hitting the streets all at once when the bars shut down. On that note, the city’s strategy of playing down late night licenses to control drunkenness was a giant failure (if that was indeed the rational behind it). Much better to have the inebriated trickle out over a longer period, not to mention discouraging them from power-drinking in the half hour before last call.
Despite some failures, there were plenty of bright spots along Queen West as well. In particular, the Gladstone Hotel once again made great use of the whole building to showcase a wide variety of good contemporary art. It felt like one big art party, and captured what you wished the rest of the street had managed to pull off. There was a real sense of exploring the space, and the curating struck a good balance between serious contemplative pieces and more accessible playful work. It’s not surprising that the Gladstone pulled it off of course, as it’s well connected to the local art scene, and not just pretending to be for one night a year. Maybe if the rest of the fest followed their model more, we wouldn’t have had corporate embarrassments like that car advertisement pretending to be art behind city hall (what the fuck was that anyway?). BENJAMIN BOLES
Light night
What I love about Nuit Blanche is how it forever transforms your idea of the city. You’ll pass by an intersection or a landmark and it will never look the same again. After NB5, I won’t pass the corner of Bay and Dundas again without thinking of those red-suited couch potatoes in Mark Laliberte’s False Kraftwerk. Regardless of who gets into City Hall, I’ll remember the laidback psychedelic vibe Daniel Lanois created at Nathan Phillips Square with Later That Night At The Drive-In.
But my favourite experience this year was seeing how the TIFF Bell Lightbox became the people’s theatre. Colin Geddes’s Grindbox series of B-movie trailers showed that movies can be cheesy, gory, campy and interesting as hell, while the Singin’ In The Dark program, hosted by the tireless Shawn Hitchins, gave us – literally – something to sing about. GLENN SUMI
Nuit north
My travels through the far northern limits of Nuit Blanche took me from the dreary to the spectacular. On my way to the Casa Loma stables I ran into some young art lovers who warned me that I would disappointed with the installation there. At first, I wondered whether younger Nuit Blanchers were insisting on too much spectacle and flash and not prepared to give the work the attention and contemplation it deserved.
But when I arrived at the site – a spectacular one featuring a stable with mosaic tiled walls – I could see their point. The installation called Cabin In The Woods was almost impenetrable, a mesh like tangle on the floor and projections that were almost impossible to read, thanks to the tiles on the walls.
But I loved walking the streets. Even in this neighbourhood where there were only two Nuit Blanche events, the sidewalks were filled with a stream of people who were excited, open and curious.
At the Wychwood Barns, I was disappointed that there was no food stand or Nuit Blanche booklets – lots of people borrowed the one I picked up at the stables. But the Theatre Direct/Abilities Arts Festival show at the Barns, called Mirage, was sensational. Australian dancer James Cunningham, whose left arm is withered, put on a spectacular movement performance, accompanied by compelling electronic music. Standing inside a mesh tent, the ground covered in about an inch of water, Cunningham manipulated a smaller, tent-like structure, while interacting with images reflected onto the mesh and the water.
Forty-five minutes of jaw-dropping beauty. For free. A perfect example of why Nuit Blanche rocks. SUSAN G. COLE
Blanche expression
In the middle of a bleak election, Nuit Blanche brought the medicine – the reaffirmation that art rules, that public spaces belong to the people, and that sharing itself is a worthy concept.
Here’s what made my Nuit Blanche shimmer:
1) Day for Night at the Church of the Holy Trinity. It took me a few secs to grasp the concept and for a while it just seemed silly but watching Hard Days Night slowed down from 90 minutes to 12 hours with accompanying live soundtrack actually played with my brain chemistry. The infiniteismal motions of fab four faces – every twitch of the eyebrow, every alteration of the jaw muscles, and reshaping of the lips – left lots of room for spacey thoughts about the price of fame, the march of time and the power of icons. Sitting under gothic arches only made it all more ethereal.
2) Auto Lamp on Yonge – a laced-work van was supposed to be a “lighthouse on land” but it just sent me in a whole other direction. I started thinking about the feminization of highways and roads – the transformation of locomotion from dependance on metal and steel to soft materials that don’t kill or maim. What if collision-safe vehicles were the law of the land? What if cars really were made of doilies? Not where the artist was going, I’ll tell you that much.
3) Yonge-Dundas bonfire – Just Because You Feel it, Doesn’t Mean It’s There. I never did exactly grasp what the concept was here but it had a huge effect on me anyway. Is that okay? It left me considering a more organic use for those slabs of concrete that form the supposed heart of our public plaza. The corporate dominated square with its endless promotional forays reminds us we are ruled by an endless cash exchange – as in T.S. Eliot’s “What is the meaning of this city?… We all dwell together to make money from each other.” But bonfires – well, they’re congenial intimate and free, a true artistic juxtaposition to the square’s billboard hell.
4) Okay, the installation at Hair Matters on Queen W. was really low-concept, I admit it – an ever-growing monument of string, wisps of material and unidentifiable hanging stuff. But, by one in the morning, I was hungry, not just for sushi, but for some tiny means of self-expression. So, when the weirdly costumed host handed me strands to tie on, I enthusiastically added my bit to the monstrosity. There – I’m an artist. ELLIE KIRZNER
