Daniel Lanois will be at the centre of "Later That Night at the Drive-In, 2010" in Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday
If you’re not a David Bowie fan you probably don’t know (and possibly don’t care) that “Sound and Vision” is the title of a song from the rock star’s pivotal and supremely arty 1977 album, Low. In many ways, the song sums up what curator Anthony Kiendl wanted to say with his Scotiabank Nuit Blanche exhibition this Saturday (October 2) so he borrowed the title.
“I was thinking about the role of pop music in art and vice versa,” says the Winnipeg-based Kiendl, “and at that particular time Bowie was leaving the U.S. and going to Europe to make the Berlin trilogy (Low, Heroes, Lodger). It seemed like an example of someone crossing boundaries and making transitions; he’d been doing film work around that time, as well. I like that it’s a simple title, it doesn’t over-explain or pre-determine the reception of the artworks.”
sight unseen, 2010, Performance Art, Sound Installation, Video Installation by Lee Ranaldo and Leah Singer
Although Kiendl’s commissions and open call selections are related to pop music, they’re not necessarily pop art. Sonic Youth’s Lee Renaldo and Winnipeg’s Leah Singer deliver a multi-media piece at Old City Hall, above, while across the street at Nathan Phillips Square producer/musician Daniel Lanois performs live to specially commissioned film works by Jennifer West and Nicholas Provost. Toronto’s Dave Dyment deconstructs a 90-minute film and live soundtrack by stretching both out to run for the 12-hour duration of the Nuit Blanche exhibition. Kianga Ford brings performance art to the Atrium on Bay and Dan Graham is installing his Performance Café with Perforated Sides on the City Hall Podium Roof.
Like the other Scotiabank Nuit Blanche curators Kiendl, left, is deeply aware that the event attracts a massive cross section of the population, the majority of whom probably never venture into a contemporary art space. And that’s just fine with the curator who began his career in Regina programming the Dunlop Art Gallery, a small exhibition space carved out of a public library.
“My formative years were focused on working with contemporary art for a non-contemporary art audience,” says Kiendl. “And having always worked in smaller cities in Western Canada, contemporary art isn’t really a separate activity, in a way you’re always speaking to a community that’s smaller and diverse and there isn’t an art market, as such. So I’ve always been interested in programming for that kind of audience, it’s just what I do.”
Kiendl suggests that sound and vision, at least “sound and light are the fundamental building blocks of film and television so I don’t think it matters what background people bring to the work, they’ll just respond to it very honestly and instinctively.”
In Winnipeg, Kiendl is Director of Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, which means he’s been curating his Nuit Blanche zone from afar. “Sometimes I wish I was there but I’ve been able to travel back and forth fairly often and it’s worked out quite well,” he says. “In the art world this is often the reality, I’m curating a Biennale in Belgium next summer.”
At least the curator has a good idea of what to expect this weekend; he was in Toronto for Nuit Blanche last year and found the event exhilarating: “My only concern is when the crowd overwhelms the work — there were one or two pieces that felt like a gong show and I felt bad for the artists. I guess it’s a party and it is what it is but over all I thought it was great. It’s fantastic to see people out; it challenges the art world and it challenges the public. I’d like to see more of it and I hope it keeps going.”
Dance with Me, 2010, Performance Art by Kianga Ford and Isabelle Noel
Naturally, there are works in other Nuit Blanche zones that Kiendl would love to see but he’ll probably be sticking close to his own exhibition area on Saturday, particularly since even he hasn’t seen any of the commissioned works before. “They’re all brand new,” he notes. “I get a bit of a sneak preview here and there but mostly the work will be as new to me as it will be to the audience.”
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