Art Gallery of Ontario curator Gerald McMaster, above (photo by Angus Rowe MacPherson) is the most seasoned member of this year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche curatorial team and yet he’s the least prone to indulge in art speak and the most open to child-like wonder at the power of contemporary art. Jaded, he is not.
McMaster uses the word “fun” repeatedly to describe several of his zone’s commissioned and open call project selections and he definitely cherishes the evening’s power to provoke and transform the city’s collective perception of contemporary art. On October 2, for the fifth year running, downtown Toronto will become a nocturnal hive for art and art lovers.
“There’s something so fantastic about the buzz of being surrounded by so many other people all out to experience the wonder of the event,” McMaster enthuses. “It’s safe and it’s fun. Nuit Blanche has really created an awareness among Torontonians of art and new artistic practices. People suddenly realize that art is not just for a white cube, it can be a spatial experience.”
“At the AGO,” adds McMaster, “we’re constantly asking, ‘Who is our audience?’ and it’s not always an easy question to answer. But with Nuit Blanche everybody is the audience.”
EPHEMERA, 2010, Acrylic on Glass with Electric Light by Nadine Faraj
The process of curating a Nuit Blanche zone — the downtown core is divvied into three zones comprising four thematic exhibitions made up of commissioned works, open call submissions and independent projects – is an exceptionally complex juggling act. In McMaster’s case, he was inspired by a quote from 17th century English poet John Dryden: “Joy ruled the day, and Love, the night.”
“That line really resonated with me,” explains McMaster, “it touched on my impression that with Nuit Blanche the city takes back the night. Each time I come to Nuit Blanche I feel like the city comes alive. People feel secure enough to come out in the middle of the night.”
Interactive landscape Dune, 2007-2010, New Media, by Daan Roosegaarde
McMaster’s Good Night promises to be a magical mix of projects utilizing video, projection, installation, fire and most of all light: “That’s the common thread,” says McMaster, “Like with Studio Roosegaarde’s piece (above) the work is like a collection of cattails with lights in them and when you touch them they make sounds.”
Roosegaarde’s work will be one of the few in the Zone A exhibition (essentially spanning Bloor Street from Yonge to St. George) that will no doubt be lined up, possibly for hours. The work is being installed in the disused Lower Bay Station, always a popular draw but one with limited access.
McMaster has endured his share of Nuit Blanche line-ups and it’s something he endeavoured to avoid with the majority of works he selected for his zone. “I wanted pieces that could be experienced by thousands of people at once, if possible,” he explains.
Monument to Smile, 2010, Video projection by Agnès Winter
And so there are massive projection works like French artist Agnès Winter’s Monument To Smile, 2010, above, which will see the faces of 250 smiling Torontonians projected onto the façade of Holt Renfrew while Charlie Chaplin’s music theme, “Smile”, plays over loudspeakers. Lucky students from OCAD’s photography program were given the assignment of shooting the local smiles, which Winter then integrated into a computerized mosaic.
At the other end of the pedestrian corridor – Bloor Street will be closed to vehicle traffic for the night – is Crossings, 2010, a work in which New York City’s OpenEnded Group has devised an ingenious, faceted video work that will play across the angular planes of the ROM crystal.
Crossings, 2010, Digital Animation by OpenEnded Group
Just steps away from that mammoth installation will be Philip Beesley’s Aurora, 2010, below, at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Described in the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche program booklet as “a responsive forest of light,” and an “aerial textile”, Beesley’s work is consistently astonishing; he’s representing Canada at the current Venice Architecture Biennale with the spellbinding Hylozoic Ground.
Aurora, 2010, Metal, Mylar, Lights, Circuitry, Cabling by Phillip Beesley
Returning to his theme and to Dryden’s quote, McMaster says, “Usually the only time you see so many people in the street is during the daytime; day is alive and night is typically dead because everybody’s sleeping. Nuit Blanche is like a kind of carnival where for one night everybody comes out, for one night only, the night becomes the day and people own the night. It’s a great night for Toronto. I think Nuit Blanche comes close to TIFF in terms of being a big event; it may be only one night but it’s free and everybody can come.”
Visual Conduction, 2009-2010, Video by Vapor Creative
Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday we’ll feature a profile of a different Scotiabank Nuit Blanche curator and zone to give you a sneak peak of what awaits you in the hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Prepare to be amazed.
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