Advertisement

Has Nuit Blanche lost its cultural relevance?

People are silhouetted by an art exhibit at the Nuit Blanche art festival
People are silhouetted by an art exhibit at the Nuit Blanche art festival

Compared to music, dance or other cultural events, the visual arts have a much more refined wine-sipping vibe. Stuffy even. Even the most provocative art exhibitions in history have triggered little more than harsh words, graffiti and some vandalism. Yet Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, where visual art installations are on display all over the core for a mere 12 hours one fall night, has gained a much more anarchic reputation.

During this year’s Nuit Blanche, hundreds of young people surrounded a handful of police officers in Yonge-Dundas Square, who had come to check on reports of a gun. Bottles and other objects were hurled at the officers, one of whom suffered a broken bone in one hand.

“We saw behaviour that was dangerous, behaviour that was reckless, behaviour that could have caused extreme, serious injuries,” Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders told a news conference a few days later. “It seems clear that for many there, it was a party atmosphere. There were smiles, laughter, encouragement, booing and cheering, attitudes completely at odds with the threat to those in the square.”

 

Stabbings. People getting trampled. A man pushed onto the subway tracks. Intoxicated people jumping on top of a police car parked in front of a hospital. Although police have been careful not to connect the bad behaviour to the event itself, those aren’t the kind of headlines that lure tourists and citizens out into your streets. And these are only the most dramatic challenges facing Nuit Blanche at its 10-year anniversary.

Autos drive under a bridge transformed into an art exhibit
Autos drive under a bridge transformed into an art exhibit

More and more art lovers are unwilling to swim through rowdy crowds or stand in line for more than an hour for a three-minute encounter with a piece of art that may or may not disappoint. The Eaton Centre stopped participating a few years ago because they couldn’t police the vandalism and the litter happening in the building. This week major Nuit Blanche sponsor Scotiabank, which contributed as much as 50 per cent of Nuit Blanche’s $3-million budget, revealed that it had given organizers notice back in February, stating the festival “no longer aligns with our sponsorship strategy.” People are wondering whether Toronto’s all-night art happening, which in its early years felt like a night of delight and magic, has lost its way.

 

Which is a little ironic, considering that the real focus of the night—the art itself—has never been more thoughtfully programmed. “There have been some pretty concerted efforts to make it into a truly international event that’s mindful of art world gravitas. But I don’t know if that worked or if people cared,” says David Balzer, art writer and author of Curationism: How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else. Twelve of the 117 official entries this year were by high-profile Latin American artists, while Paris- and New York-based artist JR, known around the world for his large black and white portraits, was given centre stage at Nathan Phillips Square. “I’ve never been 100 per cent on criticizing Nuit Blanche as this vulgar spectacle because it’s provided some openings for international artists to come, and provided openings for local and Canadian artists to kick it up a notch,” says Balzer.

Over the years the works on display have been hit and miss. Some are huge crowd-pleasers, like a UFO crash site with ET and Yoda inside a giant tent, while others are decidedly low key, like a piece this year where the artist simply reversed traffic signs on a one-way street.

 

“I know that it has helped introduce a whole new audience to performance and installation art. So that's good,” says R.M. Vaughan, author of Bright Eyes: Insomnia and its Cultures and an artist who has participated in several Nuit Blanches over the years. “I don't think anybody was ever ready for the numbers of people who showed up, and continue to show up. The works that do best in Nuit Blanche are the big, loud, sparkly outdoor spectacles. There is arguably a ‘Nuit Blanche Style’ of project now. The party versus art dynamic is frustrating, but only for the artists. We always wonder, where are you people the rest of the year?”

Toronto artist Sanda Rechico points out that there is a difference between an art exhibition and a festival—and that Nuit Blanche clearly fits into the latter category. “People come out for festivals for particular reasons. Some people come out for TIFF [Toronto International Film Festival] and they don’t even want to see the films, they just want to see the celebrities. The problem may just be crowd control and not much more,” says Rechico, who has participated in Nuit Blanche in the past. “Because it’s all night and it’s overnight, it brings that idea of party into the mix. And whenever there’s a party, somebody’s going to spill a drink.”

 

Considering how other massive Toronto events like Pride, Taste of the Danforth or the Honda Indy have managed to keep disorderly conduct to a minimum, you have to wonder if there’s something about contemporary art that sets people off. If the art is too off-putting, or the lines too long, do people get frustrated and forget why they’re there? In the absence of a coordinated party with beer gardens and DJs to focus the energy, do people feel free to turn all of downtown into a club?

Kristyn Wong-Tam, the city councillor for Ward 27, where much of Nuit Blanche takes place, wouldn’t go that far.

“There’s something very powerful about being in a crowd of people open to the outdoors and experiencing the same thing, whether it’s a light installation or a video installation or audience participatory art,” she says. At the same time, the hooliganism has scared some attendees away. For downtown businesses, it can be more hassle than it’s worth. Wong-Tam herself used to run a gallery off Queen West and but after three years opening late for Nuit Blanche, she decided she couldn’t keep her business secure enough to continue.

A few months ago, Wong-Tam suggested to Mayor John Tory that Nuit Blanche should be reviewed, pointing towards a biennial model that would happen every second year, with art displayed around the city for weeks or months, not hours. That way people who wanted to see the work in a quieter atmosphere—or in daylight or in different weather conditions—could do so at their own leisure.

“Putting all that time and energy into a 12-hour program, which has a lot of limitations into who gets to see the artwork, doesn’t seem like a lot of bang for your buck,” she says.

Rechico says a biennial is not a bad idea, but it’s not the same as what Nuit Blanche is doing. “People aren’t threatened by it like they can be threatened by galleries,” she says.

Tightening up the programming, consolidating the art in smaller zones and increasing the educational component could also help Nuit Blanche gets its mojo back.

“But I think it’s actually very hard to make art that’s 100 per cent accessible and non-elitist,” says Balzer. “If you take the intimacy away from art, you take a lot away from what art is. That’s not just Nuit Blanche. These are bigger questions that institutions and international cities are asking.”

With the loss of Scotiabank’s funding, Nuit Blanche organizers may have little choice but to reinvent and reboot.

“A shake up is always good,” says Vaughan, “but I have one fear. With the bank sponsorship gone, the event will be mostly government funded, and that will mean the political and civic agencies will want the event to be more ‘family friendly’ and ‘community art’ oriented, and then it’s truly over. The last thing Toronto needs is another night of face painting for the kids.”