Nuit Blanche is a construct of Scotiabank and bills itself as “a free all-night contemporary art thing”, which it certainly was and tres, tres funky at that. This is the 2nd year of this – now annual – smorgasbord of art on the edge and ran from 7pm last night straight through until 7am this morning.
G, Blee and I attended, stopping in at Zone A and C to see the wonderful, whacky and tacky sites and sounds. It was a perfect night to traverse the City, and, the utter silliness of some of what we saw aside, well worth a stop into Toronto next year to see. Unlike the Images Festival (which is a construct of independent media artists), Nuit blanche has mass appeal and it seemed everyone in the City was out on the streets for art’s sake. That can only be good in the long run.
We started at the Gladstone Hotel out on Queen West West to see two friends’ installation. Effie (an architect) and her husband, Mark (an artist) did a film piece that had Effie viciously beating Mark up. The attack all caught on film and now on display for everyone to see. What it all meant, art-wise, is quite beyond me though.
1) I’ve no idea what these artists with glow sticks were doing over in Kensington Market; 2) Mark & Effie’s room; 3) the
Beatrice Lillie Health Centre on Queen West West … done in Christo-lite by artist Janet Morton
4) moi outside the Drake Hotel’s light installation; 5) the installation outside the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
6 & 7) Craig Walsh’s very fun “Incursion” … a storefront aquarium
8) happenings at CAMH; 9) folks making ‘art’ themselves; 10) Michael Bartosik’s “Flourescent Dome” … this has been done before … and better I thought
11 – 13) nothing to do with art, this is UofT‘s funky Pharmacy School with it’s glowing and suspended classroom orbs, accessed by gangplanks (see right photo)
14 – 16) high on the level of corniness was Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins’ “Event Horizon” installation at Kings College Circle … a crash site and decontamination area with a tent that found us staring face-to-face with bloody ET and Yoda. Dumb, dumb, dumb! It is NOT art and these two should have their credentials stripped
17 & 18) meanwhile, over at the Royal Ontario Museum, thousands of people took in the groovy tunes and images being projected on the new crystal; 19) on Cumberland Street in Yorkville, G inched in the choir’s line and became part of the art scene by singing for the folks lining up to see the “Ghost Station”
20) Lower Bay; 21) moi with new funky platinum blond hair doo in preparation for the wedding this coming weekend
22) Lower Bay as it appeared last night; and, 23) with me doing a bit of magic with my camera to get a brighter view of the abandoned station
24) a Lower Bay subway train heads to the afterlife …
AppsScraps 
RYC: It is so true and causes less stress if we remember that.
Interesting exhibits indeed! The abandoned station is kinda creepy but I would totally love to check that out!
Great photos of some very interesting works. I think I would enjoy the tour!!
I missed it this year! Great photos.RYC: The seafood pancake came out ok. If I ever find a good recipe, I’ll let you know!