Sara Milroy reviewed Nuit Blanche
"A thought for next year. True, some of the real delights of the evening were the small things, like the stuffed architectural model of the city of Toronto by the UpBag collective, which we discovered by chance in a hallway at 401 Richmond. (I particularly enjoyed the Mies towers rendered in black corduroy, and the knitted CN Tower.) But the big guns - The Power Plant, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Royal Ontario Museum - were all more or less passive (throwing dance parties or staying open late to show your regular programming doesn't count), leaving it to Barbara Fischer at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, at Hart House, University of Toronto, to be the only museum director in town to catch the Nuit Blanche fever. Her Night School program was packed with onlookers when we checked in.
What's wrong with these people? We shouldn't really need to apply the heart paddles - they are supposed to be the folks that believe in art, after all - but if heart paddles are indeed required, maybe the city/sponsors of Nuit Blanche or other patrons should consider grants to these leading centres to fund one major one-night-only project either in their gallery space or out in the city. (How about $20,000 each?)" I agree with the statement "what's wrong with these people?" but I have a problem with her solution of simply pouring more money onto their turf. I know too many artists who put together superlative pieces with very little funding, if any at all, so excuse my peevishness on this point.
That has to be the worst idea I've ever heard. Also, Ann MacDonald curated the Hart House exhibition with Barbara Fischer. Grrrr.
Let's give $20,000 to Le Facteur! also the Nuit Noire's Drag & Witch & Unicorn Merch Table & Kissing Booth ... I was happy to get a nice fortune told after all my supernatural efforts last year. Andrew Harwood had the longest and shimmery-est eye-lashes that I believed everything he told me.
I do kind of agree with SM, however, when she says that the event needed "a core group of unequivocally major pieces by accomplished artists to anchor the night." Either that or more smaller stuff absolutely everywhere, dotted on every single street corner, and not clumped into disparate zones.
The distance between 'zones' is a big problem. It's starting to feel like everyone misses more work than they see. I feel that way.
Orest's curation of streetlight sculptures should be funded and expanded next year, it would be great to create routes between the major areas. Also, Bellwoods park was horribly under used. It's a huge area and I would have liked to have seen more outdoor pieces. (still waiting on images from the BEST PERFORMANCE EVER that took place in the park)
Also, at 3:30 am we shouldn't have had to walk into a tent to see a bunch of blank screens, for christ sake, press play on the fucking DVD machines. (I'm talking to you LIFE™© ,beetzMASSIVE.)
i am not sure how much i am supposed to tell you--but about that deer peice, nuit blanche only gave her a grand to do that, and that included artist fees, and it cost 3. i was thinking about that, and most of my work can be done for 100 or 200, and i bet you could find hundreds of artists who that is the case for.
I read that on her blog too. (and yes it pisses me off)
wait a minute. Are you guys saying Nuit Blanche should just curate artists who make inexpensive work? If it costs 3 grand it costs 3 grand. don't pay 1 grand. And yes I think this festival could be a spread the wealth kind of thing fostering lots of DIY Toronto artists, but that's not the only model that would make for a good show. Either way, though, pay the artists (content providers) for their work. Otherwise its the same old same old pecking order with Scotia bank on the top and curators getting an almost (but not really) decent fee and artists getting taken for a ride.
God no, that's not what I meant, from her blog entries about her piece, she was rejected initially, then invited later on (probably when they figured out there would be little work in Bellwoods other than Scotia Bank tents) and was given less than her budget request. (we've all been in that position) She chose to do it (as most of us would). But I'm still pissy on her behalf.
thats exactly what i am saying as well,
So there.
eeek. thanks for clarifying that.
"At every project, crowds of people gathered with curiosity, wonder and delight as the nocturnal experience unfolded around them." ...We've all been waiting with bated breath...here at last is the official Nuit Blanche press release, titled Nuit Blanche Surpasses Expectations, quoting Scotiabank dudes stating that Scotiabank Nuit Blanche was a complete success.
Terrence Dick sums it all up quite well on the Akimblog with his opening line: "There were two Nuit Blanches last Saturday: one full of disappointment and frustration that is happily fading from memory and the other full of ideas and experiences that I can’t seem to shake."
I liked that Terence Dick quote too. Also...
As the guy beside me said to his friends, “Dudes, I’m sorry, I thought it would be cooler than this.”
Russell Smith gets rightly pissy about the night's problems.
hah! that's a great rant. I also have a diagnosis for the spotty art showing, which is that timelines were really short. I don't know why...perhaps the SB funding was not confirmed til late? Perhaps the city bureaucracy got bogged down with insurance and cables and security and general paranoia about giving artists free reign on city streets? Whatever the reasons, I know me and VB had to pull out our proposal because we just didn't get confirmation in time to pull it off properly, and from what I've heard from other artists there were negotiations, delays and uncertainty until the last minute. That kind of cobbling-it-together climate doesn't produce great big stunning art works that need wacks of resources and coordinated volunteers.
Also, I'd say the volume of the crowds was a surprise to most organisers and participants (which it shouldn't have been, anybody could've predicted that more people would come out for year 2). But the lesson to be learned might be... do stuff outdoors that's either visible from a distance or that you can experience while passing through so lots of people can get it without standing in line for hours.
In terms of crowds and spectacle, the most successful project I saw was that alien spaceship emergency crash at Kings College Circle. There, the crowds were part of the piece, and there was an elegance to it, with fake security dudes and firemen patrolling the closed off area and interacting with the hordes with very believable, gosh-shucks evasion. But the idea was sort of silly, in a "why didn't I just go the movies" kind of way.
On a completely different note: I lost my camera (a new Canon Elph) while playing badminton at Hart House circle...and today I just got it back! Yay for craigslist and yay for the very nice young man who made the effort to contact me. And as a result I have some pictures of the art we saw that night, all of them far inferior to the ones L.M. sourced while the camera was lost, except this one of the fire-dudes.
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Sara Milroy reviewed Nuit Blanche
I agree with the statement "what's wrong with these people?" but I have a problem with her solution of simply pouring more money onto their turf. I know too many artists who put together superlative pieces with very little funding, if any at all, so excuse my peevishness on this point.
- L.M. 10-02-2007 2:15 am
That has to be the worst idea I've ever heard. Also, Ann MacDonald curated the Hart House exhibition with Barbara Fischer. Grrrr.
Let's give $20,000 to Le Facteur! also the Nuit Noire's Drag & Witch & Unicorn Merch Table & Kissing Booth ... I was happy to get a nice fortune told after all my supernatural efforts last year. Andrew Harwood had the longest and shimmery-est eye-lashes that I believed everything he told me.
- sally mckay 10-02-2007 6:23 am
I do kind of agree with SM, however, when she says that the event needed "a core group of unequivocally major pieces by accomplished artists to anchor the night." Either that or more smaller stuff absolutely everywhere, dotted on every single street corner, and not clumped into disparate zones.
- sally mckay 10-02-2007 6:49 am
The distance between 'zones' is a big problem. It's starting to feel like everyone misses more work than they see. I feel that way.
Orest's curation of streetlight sculptures should be funded and expanded next year, it would be great to create routes between the major areas. Also, Bellwoods park was horribly under used. It's a huge area and I would have liked to have seen more outdoor pieces. (still waiting on images from the BEST PERFORMANCE EVER that took place in the park)
Also, at 3:30 am we shouldn't have had to walk into a tent to see a bunch of blank screens, for christ sake, press play on the fucking DVD machines. (I'm talking to you LIFE™© ,beetzMASSIVE.)
- L.M. 10-02-2007 9:49 am
i am not sure how much i am supposed to tell you--but about that deer peice, nuit blanche only gave her a grand to do that, and that included artist fees, and it cost 3. i was thinking about that, and most of my work can be done for 100 or 200, and i bet you could find hundreds of artists who that is the case for.
- money (guest) 10-02-2007 4:44 pm
I read that on her blog too. (and yes it pisses me off)
- L.M. 10-02-2007 8:22 pm
wait a minute. Are you guys saying Nuit Blanche should just curate artists who make inexpensive work? If it costs 3 grand it costs 3 grand. don't pay 1 grand. And yes I think this festival could be a spread the wealth kind of thing fostering lots of DIY Toronto artists, but that's not the only model that would make for a good show. Either way, though, pay the artists (content providers) for their work. Otherwise its the same old same old pecking order with Scotia bank on the top and curators getting an almost (but not really) decent fee and artists getting taken for a ride.
- sally mckay 10-03-2007 3:44 am
God no, that's not what I meant, from her blog entries about her piece, she was rejected initially, then invited later on (probably when they figured out there would be little work in Bellwoods other than Scotia Bank tents) and was given less than her budget request. (we've all been in that position) She chose to do it (as most of us would). But I'm still pissy on her behalf.
- L.M. 10-03-2007 4:09 am
thats exactly what i am saying as well,
- anthony (guest) 10-03-2007 5:06 am
So there.
- L.M. 10-03-2007 5:13 am
eeek. thanks for clarifying that.
- sally mckay 10-03-2007 6:06 am
"At every project, crowds of people gathered with curiosity, wonder and delight as the nocturnal experience unfolded around them." ...We've all been waiting with bated breath...here at last is the official Nuit Blanche press release, titled Nuit Blanche Surpasses Expectations, quoting Scotiabank dudes stating that Scotiabank Nuit Blanche was a complete success.
- sally mckay 10-04-2007 12:36 am
Terrence Dick sums it all up quite well on the Akimblog with his opening line:
- L.M. 10-04-2007 10:10 pm
I liked that Terence Dick quote too. Also...
- sally mckay 10-05-2007 12:24 am
Russell Smith gets rightly pissy about the night's problems.
- L.M. 10-05-2007 2:35 am
hah! that's a great rant. I also have a diagnosis for the spotty art showing, which is that timelines were really short. I don't know why...perhaps the SB funding was not confirmed til late? Perhaps the city bureaucracy got bogged down with insurance and cables and security and general paranoia about giving artists free reign on city streets? Whatever the reasons, I know me and VB had to pull out our proposal because we just didn't get confirmation in time to pull it off properly, and from what I've heard from other artists there were negotiations, delays and uncertainty until the last minute. That kind of cobbling-it-together climate doesn't produce great big stunning art works that need wacks of resources and coordinated volunteers.
Also, I'd say the volume of the crowds was a surprise to most organisers and participants (which it shouldn't have been, anybody could've predicted that more people would come out for year 2). But the lesson to be learned might be... do stuff outdoors that's either visible from a distance or that you can experience while passing through so lots of people can get it without standing in line for hours.
In terms of crowds and spectacle, the most successful project I saw was that alien spaceship emergency crash at Kings College Circle. There, the crowds were part of the piece, and there was an elegance to it, with fake security dudes and firemen patrolling the closed off area and interacting with the hordes with very believable, gosh-shucks evasion. But the idea was sort of silly, in a "why didn't I just go the movies" kind of way.
On a completely different note: I lost my camera (a new Canon Elph) while playing badminton at Hart House circle...and today I just got it back! Yay for craigslist and yay for the very nice young man who made the effort to contact me. And as a result I have some pictures of the art we saw that night, all of them far inferior to the ones L.M. sourced while the camera was lost, except this one of the fire-dudes.
- sally mckay 10-05-2007 5:03 am