Thursday 17 October 2013

Nuit Blanche

Every year in early October, the city of Toronto organizes a free, all night art event called Nuit Blanche in partnership with Scotia Bank. Nuit Blanche translates to "white night". The event aims to make contemporary art accessible to the masses, in one large festival. Nuit Blanche in Toronto was first introduced in 2006, and has since showcased 850 art projects from local, national and international artists. The event starts at 6 p.m. and runs till 6 a.m. It is all throughout the downtown core in Toronto, in public spaces and various buildings. Nuit Blanche originates Paris, France where the festival began in 2002. Today Nuit Blanche is based in over 25 cities internationally, but Toronto was the first city to replicate the event in North America.

Nuit Blanche 2013 took place on October 5th and 6th. Three of the major projects are as follows.



Chinese artist Ai Weiwei created an outdoor installation in Nathan-Philips Square called "Forever Bicycles". The installation was a massive sculpture consisting of 3,144 interlocking bicycles.


French artist Boris Achour created an installation in Nathan-Phillips Square called "the rose is without why". A short poem by German poet Angelus Silesuis was spelled out in neon light which spanned over 300 feet.


Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata created an installation called "Garden Tower in Toronto" in front of the Metropolitan United Church on Queen Street East. The tower consisted of various pieces of wooden furniture.

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Toronto based [R]ed[U]x Lab created a light installation called "Ad Astra" at the Bata Shoe museum .


Toronto Based Nathan Whitford, John Farah, and Sarah Keenlyside and London, UK Based Konstantinos Mavromichalis created a light and sound installation called "lightbridge" at the Puente de Luz bridge. Watch a video of the installation here.


These were just three of the installations I saw at Nuit Blanche. There were many other excellent installations that I couldn't find information and-or photos of on the internet. A list of most of the projects involved with Nuit Blanche 2013 can be found on their website. 

I have been to 4 of the 7 Nuit Blanches in Toronto. I went with my parents for the first two, and with friend's for the last two. I definitely prefer to be with a group of people in my age group. Nuit Blanche attracts people of all ages and walks of life. But theres definitely a youthful presence at the festival. Some of the projects this year were really good, others were a bit disappointing. I'd like to see more installations in neighbourhoods like Queen Street West, Kensington Market, and Parkdale. I don't feel a creative vibe in the downtown core of Toronto as I do in those neighbourhoods. Also, it would be nice if the installations were a little more spread out.

I had a lot of fun this year with my friends. We saw excellent contemporary art from some of the greatest artists in the world. However this years Nuit Blanche definitely had it's downsides. There were definitely more people in the streets than I have ever experienced before, and it was extremely hard to move around without having to push through crowds of people. I also witnessed a lot of ignorant, intoxicated people. I understand that it is an all night event and people want to drink, but are you really enjoying the art if your inebriated and falling over? I definitely had some really annoying encounters over the course of the night. To add to that it began raining at about 2 a.m., which was unfortunate for me because I was about 5 kilometres from where I was staying at the time.

All together it was a good night. Hopefully next year will be just as good, if not better!


-SFH












6 comments:

  1. Wow this sounds really interesting. I love art (that's why I originally majored in it) but I gave up on art as a career because it seems harder and harder these days to make a living off art unless you are selling yourself out. One of my fave. installation artists from back in the was Yayoi Kusama. God that woman is old, but she has some pretty amazing installations you should look up. Who is your fave. artist and do you think having OCAD in Toronto helps the festival?

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  2. I really like Yayou Kusama aswell! As far as artist who do large-scale installations go, I find Anish Kapoor really inspiring.

    Yeah it definitely helps Nuit Blanche to have OCADU right in the downtown core. There were a few projects involving OCADU at Nuit Blanche this year.

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  3. I actually wanted to go to Nuit Blanche this year, I couldn't find a way down...I agree though (having gone in the past) it would be nice to have some more installations out of the downtown core - but I think the main reason they cluster them is so its more accessible for more people, don't you think? Drunk people are a problem at a lto of festivals and I agree that it can get tedious to deal with them at times, but do you think there is a way to solve or control this problem? Would a designated "drinking area" help do you think, or would it encourage more drinking?

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    1. Yeah, that's definitely why they cluster the events downtown. There are also a lot of spaces to hold large projects in the downtown core.

      I feel like that would probably encourage more drinking.

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  4. I went to the Nuit Blanche 2 years ago with some family member and then the previous year I went with my friends so I can agree that going with people from your age group makes it much more enjoyable. I didn't go this year but looking at the pictures the festival looks just as amazing as it did the previous years I went. What would you say your favourite piece of art from this years festival would be?

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    1. The lightbridge was really cool! I loved the combination of light and sound.

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