Nuit Blanche

[vaneramos]

Until the invitation from bobalone, I hadn't considered it. Stay up for "a free all-night contemporary art thing" in downtown Toronto? He suggested several of us gather to take advantage of the photo op.

So Saturday evening he and paulintoronto invited me and brunorepublic to convene at their house and plot our course. It would be impossible for one person to take in everything there was to offer, even if he managed to stay out all night. I had spent the afternoon perusing online descriptions of exhibits and installations, picking a few that seemed most interesting.

We commenced by riding the streetcar to Trinity Bellwoods Park, where a constellation of red Glow Worms flickered in the darkness under the trees. It was lucky we started there: apparently the lights were vandalized early in the evening. From there we strolled west along Queen Street, popping in and out of galleries. A cascade of reflective squares festooned the face of the Drake Hotel, multi-coloured waves of light playing across it.

But I was anxious to reach Liberty Village, an old industrial area south of the fashion and entertainment district. I was unfamiliar with the neighbourhood, and it had been designated for a collection of large and intriguing outdoor installations. We were not disappointed. Antique warehouses, broad streets and barren parking lots provided a fitting venue for some startling creations. These ranged from the ethereal, glowing, cubic tents, bathed in mist and pulsating light, to a group of sports mascots frolicking around a stadium, their antics growing more weary and tedious as the night progressed. The latter won the "most fucked up" award. The best part was listening to people's reactions as they walked away from the thing.

Also in Liberty Village we visited Yoko Ono's Imagine Peace exhibit, including a row of "wish trees": thousands of people wrote their personal wishes for peace on white tags and affixed them to the branches. I read a few. Some were beautiful, others snarky and incredulous.

Our last stop in the district was Overflow by Michel de Broin, a waterfall pouring continuously from a third-story window into a luminous pool surrounded by the wreckage of somebody's lifestyle. This artist had anticipated the vandalism that plagued other sites that night; high fences prevented crowds from approaching too closely. Still, it was a spell-binding effect.

From there we hiked back to King Street and caught the streetcar downtown. brunorepublic guided us on an impromptu undergound tour of The Path, desolate at night, to Nathan Phillips Square, where Stereoscope, an interactive light display played across the famous twin towers of Toronto City Hall. At the Eaton Centre we encountered one of the simplest and most enchanting creations: a gigantic cone of shimmering blue plastic suspended from the vaulted roof, slowly spinning. A mesmerized crowd milled underneath.

The crowd downtown was rowdier and less committed, even destructive, as we soon discovered. At Ryerson University we expected to find a pond full of rubber ducks, but they had all been stolen. A woman came and described how it started with one person wading in, then mob rule took over.

Nearby was one of our favourite exhibits, Katherine L. Lannin's House of Leaves, a narrow alley with thousands of pages pulled from books and fastened to the walls, transforming it to a cave.

By then it was 1:30 or so and my companions decided to head home, but I was eager to continue as long as my feet held out. First stop was Maple Leaf Gardens where two monotonous voices uttered mumbo-jumbo, while two huge screens played videos of a white resonating liquid. Simply bizarre.

I passed through the Gay Village but the exhibit was disappointing: some ghostly trees, pretty lights, and drifting dry-ice fog. It felt like the set for a performance that wasn't happening. In fact I had missed show time.

After 2 a.m. the crowd became quiet and intent, trudging purposefully from one destination to the next, consisting largely of grizzled hippies, Asian students and cheerful lesbians. Finally, three of the best exhibits of the night: a cottage made of stacked books, a depiction of the moon moving through its 27 phases, and a waterfall made of recycled plastic. All three appear in the slide show that follows.

After the waterfall I headed north on University Avenue, bound for more exhibits in Queen's Park and the Annex. I had just passed an entrance to the subway, which was running all night. It was 3:25. I wanted to keep going, but a loud voice said, "This is insane." A pair of feet does not understand contemporary art. How long can you expect them to put up with this? I turned around and went down.

The subway ran only as far as Christie Station. From there I caught a cab back to the house.

It would take me a couple hours to wind down from what I had seen. I started to compose a post that night, but according to my draft I only succeeded in writing one sentence. It was overwhelming. Even now my impressions are somewhat indescribable, but I hope to do it again next year.