Since its inception, Nuit Blanche has insisted on defining its scope both locally and internationally. Don’t be deceived. Many big names phoned in their Nuit Blanche pieces in 2006 and 2007 (Michael Snow, José Angel Toira, and Fujiko Nakaya all provided arguable bathos that first year); conversely, little-known local artists like Darren O’Donnell, Swintak, and Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins have used the evening as a high-profile launching pad for their big ideas. This year offers more internationales than ever before — a reason for excitement, to be sure — but there is equal reason, as always, to keep an eye on the home team. Here, a Zone-by-Zone breakdown of the contenders.
ZONE A (CURATED BY GORDON HATT)
Star imports: Stereoscope (Berlin, Germany), Project Blinkenlights
Already acclaimed for having executed spectacular installations (pictured above) in their hometown and in Paris, France (at that city’s own Nuit Blanche), Stereoscope come to Toronto with a hype-worthy project: turning City Hall’s 960 windows into a pixelated “visual concert” that bystanders will be able to control using their cellphones.
Hometown hero: Luis Jacob, Without Persons
Undoubtedly many will want to check out Jacob’s exhibit not only because he has had tremendous success both at home and abroad (at last year’s documenta, most notably), but also because it is in the rarely-traversed Maple Leaf Gardens. Indeed, Jacob’s piece is intended to draw attention to the space, which will “[resonate] with robotic voices” conversing about “being,” and contain two video screens abstractly illustrating the idea.
Dark horse(s): Tom Bendtsen (Toronto, ON) Conversation #2
Bendtsen hasn’t shown in Toronto since 2001 and this, an oval tower made of over 12,000 books (900 Bay, at Wellesley), will undoubtedly be a sight to see.
ZONE B (CURATED BY WAYNE BAERWALDT)
Star import: Magnetic Laboratorium/Marisela La Grave (New York City, USA)
Business Class La Grave’s Magnetic Laboratorium works in the great New York tradition of The Happening, executing unique, site-specific events in their hometown and around the world. This piece, which takes place in a parking lot at Temperance and Sheppard, lampoons the ethos of the financial district with, among other things, a crowd of “business people” lining up to have their luggage searched.
Hometown hero: Kelly Mark, Horroridor
Mark’s new installation should make more of an impression than her unremarkable A Little Thought from 2006’s Nuit Blanche. This time, she lines a long corridor at Union Station with 20-foot dual projections of footage of people screaming from various horror movies.
Dark horses: Matt Masters and Terence Houle (Calgary, AB) & 2boys.tv (Montreal, PQ),
Don Coyote
Alberta curator Baerwaldt brings some esoteric Western humour to town with Matt Masters and Terence Houle, collaborating with Montreal’s 2boys.tv (who dazzled Toronto audiences at Buddies’ ArtHouse Cabaret last year) on a drama-cum-pageant inspired by Cervantes.
ZONE C, I (CURATED BY HAEMA SIVANESAN)
Star import: Ruark Lewis (Sydney, Australia), EUPHEMISMS FOR THE INTIMATE ENEMY
Celebrated not only for his visual art but for his poetry — a métier to which, arguably, he is more devoted — Lewis is perhaps best known for his collaborative work with artist Paul Carter, which concerned the incredible vicissitudes of Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow. Here he presents 450 55-gallon drums stacked in Liberty Village, the connotations of which, in this resource-depleted world, are screamingly evident.
Hometown heroes: Ulysses Castellanos and Faisal Anwar, XIBALBA
Castellanos returns after his brave, rain-soaked performance in 2006 with talented interdisciplinary artist Anwar in tow. The two present interactive sculptures in Liberty Village that illuminate incrementally depending on the distances which viewers stand from them.
Dark horse: Noni Kaur (Toronto, ON) SNIFF, LICK, PINCH, NIBBLE, SWALLOW…..,
Mississauga artist Kaur has exhibited internationally, but remains under-the-radar in the Toronto art community. Her piece (pictured above right), already presented to great success at the ROM’s Salon South Asia: Sip/See/Swoon event last spring, consists of a metres-long rangoli: a floor decoration composed of coconut, rice, and tumeric. The piece is, apparently, not so much a diatribe about consumption and exploitation as a celebration of ethnicity and sensuality.
ZONE C, II (CURATED BY DAVE DYMENT)
Star imports: Yoko Ono (New York City, USA); Michel de Broin (Montreal, PQ), Overflow
Ono brings back her Wish Tree, last here at the AGO as part of her solo retrospective, and puts up one of her Imagine Peace billboards at the corner of Liberty and Jefferson. De Broin, winner of last year’s Sobey Art Award, installs a waterfall in the third-storey window of the prison chapel at East Liberty and Lynn Williams.
Hometown hero: Jon Sasaki (Toronto, ON), I Promise It Will Always Be This Way
Sasaki’s wryly comic conceptualism gets a vast forum at Lamport Stadium: a myriad of mascots will try to pump up visitors to jock-rock throughout the evening, themselves becoming spectacles of absurdism and defeat.
Dark horses: The Custodians of Destruction (Toronto, ON), SMASH! Droppin’ Stuff
In what is perhaps the crassest and most curious Nuit Blanche installation this year, a group calling themselves The Custodians of Destruction will, yes, drop stuff from a crane. Bring protective eyewear.