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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

NUIT BLANCHE 2012: September’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the popular one day art festival will examine how catastrophe and catharsis impacts Canadians








Toronto City Hall has been the site of many a political catastrophe. But in this September’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the popular one day art festival will examine how catastrophe and catharsis impacts Canadians.
Curated by Janine Marchessault and Michael Prokopow, Museum for the End of the World is a special exhibition of 14 projects in and below Toronto City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square, organizers announced Tuesday.
Museum for the End of the World represents a vibrant and varied investigation of art and life under the veil of oblivion and possibility,” said curator Marchessault.
The lineup of 158 art projects by more than 500 local, national and international artists includes Vancouver artist Douglas Coupland among other celebrated artists. In this seventh incarnation of the festival, the streets of Toronto will once more come alive with public art — but for one night only.
In addition to Museum for the End of the World, the city-produced component of the event will feature four curated exhibitions.
They include:
  Jean Michel Crettaz and Mark-David Hosale’s Quasar 2.0: Star Incubator, a look at the cycles of creation through light and sound in the underground parking garage at Toronto City Hall.
“It will be the first time we use the parking garage at City Hall, so we are using the entire premises as an art installation, above and below ground,” says Sylvia Kavanagh, spokesperson for the city’s economic development and culture department.
Postcards from the End, an interactive installation by Sara Beck, ponders the question of what happens when photo-ops and disaster come together beneath Nathan Phillips Square.
Nathaniel Dett Chorale’s I Dream A World promises “a unique musical performance” on Nathan Phillips Square.
The Rotunda of Toronto City Hall will be transformed by Marco Brambilla’s video work Civilization (Megaplex) a satirical take on eternal punishment and celestial reward.
While it’s virtually impossible to see all the exhibits in one night, curators have divided the city into more manageable “zones.”
As part of the festival, there are also “Nuit Talks” including a symposium of three noted philosophers looking at the issue of “Until the End of the World.”
Arthur Kroker, Brenda Longfellow and Slavoj Žižek consider the profound ecological and economic issues that confront the Planet City Hall.
The community-produced portion of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2012 will feature 96 projects this year.
The Power Plant, Ryerson University, Regent Park Arts & Cultural Centre will also host projects in their unique venues. Neighbourhoods, including Parkdale, Queen West and The Distillery District, will feature multiple installations by local artists.
Here are some of events highlighted by the City of Toronto:
Exhibition Zone A (Downtown South/West)
Curator Shauna McCabe’s exhibition DRIFT offers encounters with the city that highlight the consistency of urban space as fluid and poetic.
Exhibition highlights:
Yves Caizergues’ installation Green Invaders, inspired by the iconic video games of the 1980s, reconnects people with beginning of the technological era.
Lighthouse, a Catherine Yass film, visually surveys a lighthouse in the English Channel from the perspective of a helicopter, a boat and underwater divers in the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
In Dollar General Drive By, Tim Davis records western New York State’s small-town streetscapes, changing economic times and everyday life along King St. W.
Matthew Moore’s work Lifecycles transforms David Pecaut Square with time-lapse photography of microscopic growth cycles on a circular screen.
Exhibition Zone B (Downtown Central/East)
Christina Ritchie curates Bodies and Buildings, an exhibition inviting viewers to consider how their passage through the city contributes to the construction of its chronicles and traditions.
Exhibition highlights
  Darkning by Ceal Floyer demonstrates the thrilling celestial drama of lightning modified through video at the Richmond Adelaide Centre.
Jeanne Holmes’ All Together Now is an experiential dance collaboration that invites public participation outside the Richmond Adelaide Centre.
Neil Campbell’s Pair focuses on the perceptual process and invites the audience to engage with the space surrounding two sculptural spheres located between Osgoode Hall and the University Ave. Courthouse.
In Ambient Walk, Ed Janzen documents the city’s alleys in real time via live stream video from the perspective of his feet.
Exhibition Zone C (Downtown East)
Curated by Helena Reckitt, the exhibition Once More with Feeling presents works that reference and evoke repetition and emotion, recognizing the power of memorial and reenactment.
Exhibition highlights
Trisha Brown Dance Company restages their performance of Planes (1968). Dancers work against gravity as they perform on a vertical stage at Dundee Place.
During Smells Like Spirit roadies perpetually “load-in” Nirvana for a final concert at the loading dock of the Elgin Theatre in this piece by Hadley+Maxwell.
Susan Stenger’s work The Structures of Everyday Life: Full Circle will fill the bandstand in St. James Park with a rhythmic soundscape comprised of different voices in different keys.
Dave Dyment amasses a comprehensive collection of disaster cinema tropes in The Day After, Tomorrow at King James Place on King St. E.


 
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