Results tagged “nuitblanche2009”

For some, the works are underwhelming and too few and far between, yet for others, it's one of the few times when Toronto steps outside its dreary box—and that's reason enough to celebrate. You may think it makes modern art accessible to the masses, but perhaps you feel that the installations could be better. Cast a vote, and then head over to last year's poll to see how it compares.

Now that we have all recovered from our Nuits, it's time to step back and take stock. When we do we find, much like we did in previous years, that Nuit Blanche is still at the stage of working better as an idea than it does in execution.

For the duration of Nuit Blanche, Torontoist hosted Blanche Slate, a concurrent projection onto the south-facing wall of the Art Gallery of Ontario and a liveblog updated right here, below. For the whole entire night, we continually threw Nuit Blanche updates—photos and text, from both our contributors and our readers—to the wall, and into this article.

Whatever you think of Nuit Blanche, in Toronto there's really no other nuit like it. The "free all-night contemporary art thing," this year happening from sunset on Saturday, October 3 to sunrise on Sunday, October 4, has earned its fair share of ambivalence over its previous three years—not because the idea itself is not a fantastic one, and not because the event itself isn't intermittently enthralling and exciting and cool, but because people are naturally critical of something that we all deservedly hold to very high standards. If you're willing to brave a disappointment or two, a lot of walking, and (this year) a bit of rain, though, Nuit Blanche remains one of the best ways to experience a different side of Toronto.

On Nuit Blanche, Torontoist'll be lucky enough to claim a spot on one of the biggest canvases of all: the Art Gallery of Ontario's walls. And we want to share it with you.

This upcoming weekend, Torontoist won't just be covering Nuit Blanche: we—and you, gentle reader, should you so choose—will be part of it. We'll throw more light on our project later this week, but we assure you it'll be worth staying up with us for.

For the greater part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of those artists whose work was rejected for exhibition in the prestigious Paris Salon displayed them in the Salon des Refusés, an exhibition that would eventually become at least as famous and as well-respected as the Salon itself. For the second year in a row, Toronto's Nuit Blanche will have its own version: some of those artists either unable to or uninterested in having their work appear under the official banner of the city's largest arts night but who still want to exhibit their work that night anyway will have their pieces collected into "Les Rues des Refusés." Literally translated as "streets of rejects," "Refusés" is an alternate program of rogue exhibits, running alongside Nuit Blanche on the night of October 3 but totally unaffiliated with it.

So, we know we were all abuzz about summer festivals just this morning, but time is tickin' along, and everyone's just so busy that we thought we'd skip right ahead to autumn. This morning organizers unveiled Nuit Blanche 2009, at a suit- and camera-happy press conference at the Art Gallery of Ontario.