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Continuing in the fine tradition of years past, the MONDOarts department dispatched four writers to cover this year’s Nuit Blanche and their escapades during said event. Enjoy!
By Carolyn Tripp
In a city-wide evening of art installations and general mayhem, there’s bound to be differing opinions on the night’s overall success. One can run into terribly beautiful and just plain terrible art in a matter of minutes with an event as heavily saturated as Nuit Blanche.
Bearing this in mind, there were some excellent heavy-hitters this time around. I’m sad to say I didn’t have the time to line up for the carnival rides, the FASTWÜRMS tarot card readings, or even to hit the Liberty Village stretch. The evening’s overall worst crime seemed to be, however, that there was a bounty of formidable and publicly accessible ideas, but a disproportionate amount of effective results.
The disappointments included the underused University of Toronto grounds and an installation that included trash bags in an alley that ended up looking like, well, just trash. However, one must also take into consideration that a one-time-only, twelve-hour-long installation for anything is a bit of a crap shoot. Several things, be it flaws in a performance, technical difficulties, or broken equipment can happen at any point in the evening. A bit of an artist’s nightmare if something goes wrong. This is especially true when one subtracts the invariably controlled environment of an indoor gallery space.
I also understand not every visitor to our fine city is down with contemporary art, but many were curious just the same. Sober, wasted, tired, happy or wired, there were some pretty frank opinions flying around about the pieces on display. My favourites were:
“Since when is fog supposed to be art?!”
And later,
“Video art sucks!”
And after that, an entire square’s worth of people,
“Oooo!!!” as they cooed at the four-letter word, “Love,” towering above them, suspended between the two towers of City Hall.
Cry School Yearbook
One very solid project came from the team behind Cry School Yearbook (Jenny Suddick, Emily Gove, and Alison Kobayashi). They rounded up an impressive collection of goth clothing and accessories to create a graduation-style album of misfits. Though making up bloody creatures for twelve hours straight is exhausting work, the results were a gorgeous array of awkward poses with dead flowers, fake diplomas, and black chokers.
This project also stood out as being the most effective at utilizing the vaulted chambers and heavy wrought-iron chandeliers of the Hart House space. It also successfully harnessed the spirit in which Nuit Blanche is intended. While putting on gowns and makeup is universally fun, each “cry baby” walked away with something tangible, a photograph in a montage that wouldn’t have been possible without their participation.
Other highlights included Heather Nicol’s Imminent Departure and the Witches’ Cradles in Brookfield Place. The Wild Ride on Bay Street, however, while impressive in its scale, was not as solid a concept as some of the other large installations. But it does get full marks for entertainment value and being operated, it was rumored, by laid-off bankers.
In spite of my reservations, it’s still great to walk around the city on a cool evening, looking at spaces transformed by a multitude of means. Next time, however, the City of Toronto might consider more road closures on Queen, and kids should consider laying off the sauce before hittin’ the town. I loved Nuit Blanche 2007, and hope that the essence of the behemoth might be recaptured in the years to come.
