#21 My experience at Nuit Blanche

Nuit Blanche is one of Toronto's major art event. The first Nuit Blanche began in Paris in 2002, as an all night contemporary art scene. It spread around the world, and four years after its birth in Paris, Toronto started its own. In fact, Toronto was the first North American city to fully reproduce the Paris prototype. Since 2006, Toronto attracts people from all over Canada and even gathers international crowds or so I hear.

Gladstone Hotel

Although I have a background in art history and I enjoy looking at art works, I don't find Nuit Blanche as interesting as I used to. I say this because I don't find much of the installations displayed through Nuit Blanche artistically intriguing. Because I purposely missed last year's art all-nighter, I decided to force myself to check it out this year, hoping that it got better this year. Plus, it would give me a chance to compare works by Camal to his contemporary Canadian artists.

Wall Spray, Nuit Blanche 2012

The most memorable project for me was called 'Apollonia'. If I say it involves a rental truck and an opera singer, what image would you create in your mind? It was a performance art where the artist, or in this case, the opera singer performing an aria that lasts about a minute or two. I found it very amusing yet memorable because as an audience, you are able to experience it one on one. The artist strongly recommends for one to visit the truck alone.

The Institute of Knots, Nuit Blanche 2012

Through this year's Nuit Blanche, I realized that the works can be divided into three categories, ordered in my preference : 1) audience participatory art, 2) performance art and 3) installation art. Audience participatory art refers to the projects that allows the audience to participate in a work. People were trying to untie the knots from 'The Institute of Knots' at MOCCA. An event such as Nuit Blanche is an audience-friendly, allowing one to touch and feel an 'art work', which is a refrained activity in most of the museums.

She's Come Undone, Nuit Blanche 2012

The second category is performance art, where a live performance or a performance through media is presented to the audience. My favourite piece 'Apollonia' or 'She's Come Undone' presented by the Knit Cafe are a couple of examples of performance art. I am planning an interview with a renowned Canadian performance artist, Camille Turner, so stay tuned!

Vertical Constructions: Dancer #1 and #2, Nuit Blanche 2012

The last category is an installation art, where an art work is displayed at a fixed position. An example is shown through 'Vertical Constructions' piece at the Eaton Centre. Even though I didn't get to look at everything, from what I've seen, I could tell that most of the projects were in the first two categories. I thought that this made sense since the whole point of hosting Nuit Blanche is to make contemporary art easily accessible to large audiences. It is also to help people remove the misconception of contemporary art - the stereotypical question of "I don't like contemporary art because I don't get it."