Two years ago in this space I wrote about attending Nuit Blanche, a one-night-only arts festival that runs from dusk until dawn. If you think this sounds magical, it is…or at least it was.
Picture an urban downtown transformed, sculptures in alleys, multimedia installations projecting onto buildings, performance art on the street, location-specific works of art making the most of the spaces that, for one night only, they are allowed to take over.
Wandering around with friends at night, finding art in the most unlikely places, I felt like I was getting away with something, like I was discovering a secret part of the city, like I was sharing a private experience with the other attendees.
Nuit Blanche been part of the Toronto arts festival scene since 2006, although the concept originated in Europe and has since spread around the world. Every year it gets bigger — a million people converge on downtown Toronto.
At the risk of sounding like a hipster…when I first started going, the crowds were much smaller and the experience more intimate. But this year my predominant experience was of masses of people, long lineups for anything interactive or space-limited, the smell of pot in the air, a downtown invaded.
Even the art itself seemed underwhelming this year — middle-of-the-road, designed not to make the masses uncomfortable or even, really, to make them think. We saw a pretty good swath of the festival, but only a few pieces were at all memorable…
Monster Child by Libby Hague — a giant balloon spider creeping up on a smaller balloon child
Music Box by John Dickson — an assemblage of musical instruments creating a glorious cacophony that periodically disappeared into a box like the cuckoo in a clock
Queen of the Parade by Lisa Anita Wegner and Vanessa Lee Wishart — a giant quilted dome, with a giant pair of women’s legs on a video screen in front, and a real woman smiling and waving up top
(Want to see photos of these and other installations? Check out Instagram.)
I will admit that modern art isn’t really my thing; I don’t know the history of what I’m looking at, and I’m often unmoved by the artists’ descriptions. But I know what I like when I see it, even if I don’t know why. I like to have an aesthetic and/or emotional and/or intellectual reaction…and this year I didn’t, much.
But.
I continue to be boggled that a million people are coming downtown to see art. Not for:
…a parade (the Toronto Caribbean Carnival draws 1.3 million for the parade alone; Toronto’s Pride Week draws a million over the course of the week)
…or to see celebrities (the Toronto International Film Festival draws 400,000)
…or to listen to music (Toronto Jazz Festival and North by Northeast are two of the biggest, attracting hundreds of thousands each)
…but to view and interact with and experience modern art. The Art Gallery of Ontario draws as many people in a year as Nuit Blanche does in a single night. And that’s pretty cool.
Even if it means I have to share.
Over to you, faithful readers! What do you think of cultural festivals like Nuit Blanche? Have you ever discovered something early on and then watched it get popular later?