We break down the highlights of this year’s Nuit Blanche in an attempt to solve the great mystery surrounding Toronto’s all-night art thing: whether or not the exhibits will be as worthwhile as advertised.
The City of Toronto announced the full program today for this year’s edition of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, which has been scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29.
Inspired by the Mayans’ famous, albeit disproven, prediction (and, ostensibly, current global affairs), the overarching theme of the night is “the end of the world.” Whether or not this theme will inspire some disturbing artistic visions come the last weekend of September, we’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, however, we thought we’d take a look at each of Nuit Blanche’s most anticipated exhibits, and make a semi-educated guess on whether or not they’ll be every bit as breathtaking as advertised. Herewith, the 2012 Nuit Blanche Decoder:
CITY HALL
Title: Museum of the Rapture (pictured above)
Artist: Douglas Coupland
Location: City Hall parking garage (#DTN)
Medium: Signage, Tableaux vivants
The Press Release Says: “Visitors will pass through a maze of signage and living tableaux that use the religious notion of The Rapture as an embarkation point to an exploration of the separation of mind and body.”
What It Probably Means: On any other day, wandering around City Hall’s underground parking lot feels like the exact opposite of a religious experience. But if anyone can transform this subterranean labyrinth into a dazzling house of worship, it’s Douglas Coupland.
Title: World Without Sun
Artist: Christine Davis
Location: Nathan Phillips Square (#DTN)
Medium: Projection installation
The Press Release Says: “The Square becomes a space of intricately connected life forms seemingly teetering on the brink of both oblivion and renewal. World Without Sun is a visceral experience of sound and light that urges us to consider the radical interdependencies of life on this planet.”
What It Probably Means: If you like your Nuit Blanche exhibits big and bold, gazing up at this giant, luminous jellyfish could be the perfect start to a wild, weird night.
Title: White Dwarf
Artist: An Te Liu
Location: City Hall loading dock (#DTN)
Medium: Sculpture
The Press Release Says: “White Dwarf is a floating orb composed of obsolete domestic artifacts. Its title comes from the term given to dying stars in our galaxy—those which have lost their energy and imploded into degenerate matter. In this work, Liu creates a moribund assemblage of that which was once ‘new’ but now dormant and fading.”
What It Probably Means: This is one of those exhibits where size matters. If Liu can put the giant problem of household waste into an appropriately sized perspective, White Dwarf will be worthwhile. If it’s too small, skip it.
Title: The Uplifting
Artist: Dana Claxton
Location: City Hall parking garage (#DTN)
Medium: Video installation with sound
The Press Release Says: “The Uplifting engages with the idea of a Museum for the End of the World, in that through endings there are new beginnings and possibilities; as well, the artist is suggesting that, through sanctifying the museum through a re-enchantment of sorts, the museum can be a place of exaltation in the most particular ways through the enjoyment and embodiment of art: to feel the art, to live the art, to breathe the art, to be the art.”
What It Probably Means: Your guess is as good as ours…
Title: Once upon a time
Artist: Tania Mouraud
Location: Nathan Phillips Square (#DTN)
Medium: Video installation
The Press Release Says: “Inspired by the Brothers Grimm tales, Tania Mouraud went into the boreal forest of Canada and two forests of France to film the forest industry and different machines linked to the wood industry. The machines look like voracious monsters and bring back memories of the mythical figure of the ogre.”
What It Probably Means: This spooky video vaguely sounds like a Canadian version of Yakov Smirnoff’s famed Soviet-era Russia jokes: “In boreal forest, tree cuts down you!”
Next page: Breaking down the highlights of Zone A
