Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2008 Preview
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2008 returns with a vengeance on Saturday October 4, and with 195 exhibits and an expected 800,000 visitors for this one-night dusk-till-dawn event... they're soon going to need a bigger boat.
Now in its third year, Scotiabank's Nuit Blanche is something I highly anticipate every year. Where else can I see so many artists willing to involve ME in their exhibits? But at an event of this size and scope, I haven't been able to satisfy my ego - 195 exhibits, 12 hours... the math just doesn't figure. At least this year's curators have revealed the line up early, so I can plan my strategy and cover as much ground as possible.
At this morning's press conference I learned that despite the event's exponential growth in both artistry and attendance, Nuit Blanche would again be contained within a one-night affair. Mayor David Miller and Minister of Culture Aileen Carroll were on hand along with this year's curators to help unveil the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2008 line up. With three Zones spread across the city from the Financial District to Liberty Village, there's a lot of ground to cover.
Gordon Hatt, Curator of Zone A, discussed plans for public spaces like Toronto's City Hall towers, the Ontario Power Generation building, Maple Leaf Gardens, the Eaton's Centre and other famous locations that promise to completely transform the spaces. 15 Seconds, 2008 by Daniel Olsen of Montreal will probably be my first stop; the artist will be capturing pedestrians in a spot light from up in a tower above Yonge and Dundas square. If I can't hit up every event, I'll at least have my 15 seconds of awkward fame. My next stop, College Park for Jillian McDonald's Zombies in Condoland ...need I say more? Finally, I'll go make some noise as there are tons of exhibits to exploit the senses, like open call entrants Mahan Javadi and Bruno Billio's exhibit Urban Voice Oscillator.
With a one-time cash injection from the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund and ongoing commitment from its title sponsor, the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche will be back for at least the next three consecutive years. I'll be watching the official website for a complete list and schedule of events... I only hope that in the coming years they consider getting a bigger (3 day) boat.
Comments (12)
New and improved this year will be ScotiaBank Branding 10 times the size! Be sure to pick up your free ScotiaBank Brochure with attached ScotiaBank Map. Feeling tired? Head over to your local coffee shop to grab a cup of ScotiaBank Latte. Which one? Doesn't matter, we've bought the naming rights to all of them. Scotia Starbucks, Scotia Bank Presents Tim Hortons and Scotia Time?
Also brought to you by Scotiabank, over $4.9 million dollars in economic reveue that is later credited directly to the arts and the artists themselves.
Just a thought :)
I agree with Corina, if hearing their name is the price we have to pay for all of this, so be it. It doesn't mean we have to go be their clients or anything.
Since their money and sponsor branding obviously backfired on Scotiabank in a lot of people's minds, how exactly did Scotiabank's evilery WIN here? I certainly haven't switched banks just because of this.
2009: Nuit Blanche cancelled due to lack of funding!
I'd prefer to have one blanket sponsor to overlook than 500 tiny ones vying for ad space... by the looks of the 2008 exhibits, this event could not be done on a small budget.
Yeah, I can't *wait* to wait in line and trudge along in the midst of crowds so massive you can't see anything and can't take the time to enjoy anything you actually *do* see. Oh, and dodge the drunk assholes.
Last year's event *sucked*. We walked around for four hours and barely saw anything. It's a shame, because the whole idea is for everyone to have a chance to experience it, but the huge crowds make it nigh-on impossible. Nuit Blanche is a victim of its own success. IF I decide to try and take it in this year, I'm going to wait until 2-3 AM and then venture out.
I really disagree with the idea that Nuit Blanche could be expanded to a weekend event... that would kill the entire concept and excitment of the event...
Last year was a bust as Tommy Boy says because the streets were totally impassable. I took the Bathurst streetcar north from King and it took 45 minutes to get to Queen street (I was trying to get to Bloor but gave up).Walking down Queen from there was nearly impossible due to the mass crowds trying desperately to squeeze through the vehicles blocking their way.
I hope that the organizers realize the importance of traffic control. If all the parked cars, vehicle traffic, and streetcars were removed from Queen Street West, then there would have been room for people to move about. There is no reason for cars to be in the street during this festival. Park elsewhere and walk. Then we'll all enjoy.
I totally agree that the logistics of moving 3/4 of a million people around a few blocks of downtown space haven't been well planned in the past... but I like the fact that the exhibits are getting BIGGER and will dominate huge public spaces. It makes more sense for the nature of the event, and I think the open call winners seem to have been chosen because their work can interact with large crowds without causing the annoyance felt in past years.
Give it a chance! This event exploded after only a few years and I agree, organizers haven't met the challenge ... YET.
Last year we went out at 2 am and there were NO line-ups at all, we had such a great time!
I feel bad for everyone who went out at 11 pm and experienced the bedlam. Any free event on a Saturday night is going to be chaos, right?
Definitely head out later - many of the exhibits (like the secret subway station) were incredible and haunting at 4:30 AM.
I wasn't there...my comment revolves around the one major item shown on this site. As this was picked for the public image of "art" it looks to me as though a celebration of ugliness is the most compelling thing for whoever created the site for Scotia. Unfortunately the scene is manufactured.Why? ,when so much ugliness "reality" abounds.
Perhaps some real life stills of the bodies of Iraqi and Palestinians, especially the young chidren with bullet shattered skulls and faces might actually reach into that "artistic celebration" of ugliness and the grotesque which has pervaded the world since 1970 but particularly since 1948, accelerating in 1991.
Recent events in Australia showed "artists" getting "haughty and precieuse" over the exploitation of a 12 year old female by a man portraying himself as an artist, then the "artistic press" used a 6 nude year old child as its coversheet, its perverted reaction to being "censored" by the "boring, unarty" community.
If artists want to get themselves off over what they think we should "appreciate" then why not present the real ugliness we have created (as what can only be sarcastically referred to as "democratic, peace loving, nations)...the genocides still in progress and by the world's two greatest "WMD" hypocrites.
Over 600,000 innocent people from babies to great grandparents murdered in Iraq, well over a million if one accounts for the American sanctions and over 5000 in Palestine.The resistance to these American and Israeli invasions has seen about 4200 "coaltion" soldiers killed and 1400 Jews also. Even the disproportions of numbers and the nature of weapons available to fight the invaders is ugly.
Even uglier, for artists who get off over ugliness is that the greater numbers were even further supplemented by their invaded tortured maimed and pillaged bretheren. Plenty of ugliness there for your canvas and brush. Why isn't it being a full scale Scotia exhibition? Nothing is more relevant to everything than these events.
The ugliness of their deaths and the ugliness of the horiffic injuries of the "living" is avodied like the plague by the captive and politicised media
How about some exposure of those tiers of ugliness by some of these contemporary "artists"...perhaps Scotia could dedicate the next exhibition to the ugliness of political murder...maybe run the some of the Mossad library of videos of some of their assassination hits...including of a couple of German politicians.
Let's make ugliness have some real value rather than be simply a policy of desensitisation.
Artists claim to be "honest"...well, how about showing some honesty about the reality that we are too cowardly to face about ourselves in supporting our so called "governments", those avariced, component parts of the New World Order fuedal system, spearheaded by 'globalisation' which is dragging us into planetary culture of the ugliness of the assassinated, those innocent peoples who's death is "our final solution".Plenty of scope there to examine "why? where? who? and how?" on canvas board and celluloid.
Nuit Blanche 2008 was absolutely terrible. I can't imagine how they could have screwed it up so badly since 2006. I walked from 7pm until nearly 7am, and there was not a single redeeming exhibit. It was a complete waste of time and effort for everyone involved. I hope they smarten up and do something worthwhile next year. I was also surprised at the lack of Canadian art showcased.
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