nuit blanche | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘nuit blanche’

our faces are all over the place

Posted: October 12, 2015 in events, public art
Tags: 3D Toronto sign, black and white, brooms, faces, glue, heads, helpers, Inside out, kids, Mel Lastman Square, men, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, people, photos, pictures, snb2015, snbTO, women

Inside Out, a global art project
with more than 250,000 portraits in 124 countries

This project came Toronto as an extended Nuit Blanche installation.

Starting a few days before Nuit Blanche the Inside Out mobile Photobooth was parked at Nathan Phillips Square. Anyone who was interested could have their picture taken – a digital copy was emailed to each participant and a large black and white copy was printed within minutes. The photos were collected and then used to make one large image, a series of concentric circles in the center of the square.

below: Getting ready for Nuit Blanche at Nathan Phillips Square

below: Nathan Phillips Square at Nuit Blanche

below: The side of the ramp to the upper level was also covered with photos.

below: … as was the south side of the 3D Toronto sign.

below: The Inside Out Project remained after Nuit Blanche.

below: There were a number of other sites around the city that participated in this project including a wall at Mel Lastman Square in North York.

below: There was also a wall on the southwest side of Coxwell subway station that was covered.

#IOPToronto | #snb2015 | #snbTO | #share3DTO

Lots more info about Inside Out can be found here.

An Te Liu

Posted: October 11, 2015 in events, public art
Tags: An Te Liu, bronze, cast, extended, found material, nuit blanche, sculpture, snb2015, snbTO, Toronto sculpture garden

‘Solid State’ an exhibit of sculptures made from found material that are then cast in bronze, by An Te Liu at the Toronto Sculpture Garden on King Street East. This is one of the Nuit Blanche installations that is still on view. It is co-produced by MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art) and the City of Toronto.

below: Three sculptures. From left to right are: 1. Meta-matic, 2. Tourist, and 3. Ascension

below: Vegetable, Mineral

below: Remains of the Day

silent knight

Posted: October 9, 2015 in events, galleries, public art
Tags: barn owl, ekonomical, Ekow Nimako, foot, Gardiner museum, lego, nuit blanche, sculpture, silent knight, snb2015, snbTO, talons, wing

Silent Knight by Ekow Nimako,
a sculpture of a barn owl using more than 50,000 pieces of LEGO,
on display in front of the Gardiner Museum as an extended Nuit Blanche exhibit

#snbTO

one blue, one naked

Posted: October 8, 2015 in events, public art
Tags: Allan Gardens, billboards, downtown, extended projects, Francisco Fernandos Granados, headless, Luis Jacob, naked man, nuit blanche, refugees run the seas, snb2015, snbTO, Sphinx, statue, Toronto

Some of the art installations from Nuit Blanche remain available for viewing this week.
Two of them are near Jarvis and Gerrard.

below: As you travel south on Jarvis Street, just before Gerrard, you can see a billboard art installation, ‘Refugees run the seas’ by Francisco Fernandos Granados. The accompanying sign says: “‘Refugees run the seas’ draws and diverts from pop culture as a way to invite the viewer to imagine a future where justice for migrants exists. The work evokes past and present scenes of harrowing escape while allowing the possibility of a time to come when those seeking refuge will be agents of movement, rather than victims.”

“Refugees run the seas ’cause we own our own boats” is a line from Wyclef Jean’s rap in Shakira’s song ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ in case you were wondering how this billboard “draws and diverts from” pop culture.

below: In the Children’s Conservatory at Allan Gardens is another installation. This one is titled “Sphinx” and it is by Luis Jacob of Toronto. According to the Nuit Blanche sign: “Toronto is changing before our eyes. Neighbourhoods and skylines are transformed seemingly overnight while the social fabric of the city is altered in ways that are difficult to discern. Come in and see the ‘Sphinx’, who poses questions that we want ardently to ask.”

The hands and fingers of this tall and imposing headless man are forming a frame that is apparently supposed to capture our attention. When you walk into the conservatory it’s definitely not the hands that you notice. The hands are way above the line of sight. Of course, one could ask why he has no clothes and does having no head enhance the artwork. Can you ask questions if you have no mouth, no voice? And are the questions ardently wanted or ardently asked? hmmm….

There are books and pamphlets in display cases around the room. These publications are all about Toronto and they date back as far as 50 years ago. No, you can’t access the books, you can’t open or read them. I’m not sure what information they are supposed to add to the exhibit.

#snbTO

crushed and bundled

Posted: October 2, 2015 in events, public art
Tags: aluminum, art, artist, bottles, cans, city, city hall, garbage, nuit blanche, plastic, recycling, Sean Martindale, solid waste, tin, Toronto, trash, waste

below: Coke, Dole juice, Diet Coke, Fanta orange, cans, cans, and more cans.

below: Coors beer, Canada Dry, Nestea, more Fanta, more Coke, all crushed and ready to be recycled.

The City of Toronto collected about 200,000 tonnes of blue bin recyclables in 2014. Since a tonne equals 1,000 kilograms, that’s 200,000,000 kilos of recyclable plastic bottles, pop cans, tin cans etc.

Piles of crushed recyclables collected from Toronto’s blue bins are stacked along Bay Street beside City Hall. They will be part of an installation entitled ‘There is No Away’ for Nuit Blanche this coming weekend. This work was sponsored by the city’s Solid Waste Management committee and put together by artist Sean Martindale. This installation hopes to raise awareness of just how much garbage we produce and throw “away”.

nuit blanche 3

Posted: October 13, 2014 in events
Tags: alley, boxes, cardboard, graffiti, manifesto, night, nuit blanche, paint, public art, robots, snbTO, street art, Toronto

Manifesto, in an alley, appropriately enough.

graffiti covered cardboard boxes put together in a robot shape. The face (or head) is a white light. It's an alley.

“You can’t silence my thoughts”

manifesto cardboard box graffiti covered robot like structure in an alley at night

faces on both sides

nuit blanche 2

Posted: October 10, 2014 in events
Tags: amazing, colours, lights, maze, metal bars, nuit blanche, people, rays of light, shadows, snbTO, Toronto, walking

Nuit Blanche – the Amazing Maze.

Some metal framework, some gauze-like fabric, and some interesting lights.

Shadows, lights, and colours to play with.

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.
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piles

Posted: October 13, 2013 in events
Tags: ai weiwei, art, bell trinity square, bicycles, chairs, city hall, metropolitan united church, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, Pascale Marthine Tayou, plastic bags, squirrel, Tadashi Kawamata, Toronto

Piles of chairs, piles of bicycles and piles of plastic bags. That is the best way to summarize three of the Nuit Blanche installations that remained on display for a week or so after the 5th of October.

…

First, the pile of chairs

Garden Tower, by Tadashi Kawamata of Hokkaido Japan

in front of Metropolitan United Church

“As if each person who sat on these chairs left a piece of himself, the work evokes the beautiful and utopian spects of the myth of the Babel Tower, a humanity speaking with one voice and engaged, with solidarity, in the building of a better future.” (from the sign accompanying the installation)

a large pile of chairs sits in front of a church

Garden Tower chairs in front of Metropolitan United Church on Queen Street East.

A hollow pile of chairs about thirty feet high. The photo is taken from inside the pile. The sky can be seen in the photo.

Looking upward from inside the pile of chairs. There was a pathway that ran through the base of the tower.

A squirrel sits on the bottom of a red and white striped chair that is upside down.

new found habitat for one of Toronto’s four legged residents

…

Then the pile of bicycles:

Forever Bicycles by Ai Weiwei at Nathan Phillips Square

Part of the curved walls of city hall are in the background and part of a number of bicycles is in the foreground.

bicycles in front of city hall

A woman wearing a green sweater and a bicycle helmet is standing in the middle of a pile of more than 3000 bicycles. She also has her own bike with her.

one bike amongst many

Nathan Phillips Square on a grey and foggy morning. There are a few people in the square who are looking at the large art installation that involves a structure made from more than 3000 bicycles

Nathan Phillips Square on the wet and foggy morning after Nuit Blanche.

…

Last, the pile of plastic bags:

Plastic Bags by Pascale Marthine Tayou of Cameroon

interior, Bell Trinity Square

The interior of a large office building. A group of men are standing and talking under a large collection of red, white, green and yellow plastic bags.

The plastic bags hang from the ceiling like a big blob. Like confetti, or bits of coloured paper, ready to be dropped on the people below.

Nuit Blanche 2013

Posted: October 9, 2013 in events
Tags: 401 Richmond St., ai weiwei, bikes, bones, city hall, CN Tower, crowds, George Walker, graffiti, honey, installations, leg, lights, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, painting, people, phones, photography, pics, posters, prints, spheres, street art, Toronto

Saturday, 5th October

downtown Toronto

This is only a small selection of the art installations and exhibitions that were on display that night.

part of an art installation where there are small bones hanging from the ceiling, A man's leg is in the background

Bones, leg bones? Part of the ‘Indicator’ installation at Gareth Bate Art Projects, 401 Richmond St.
“Birds, bats, bees. Indicator species tell us when ecosystems are in peril. Bones, sugar, dripping honey – a meditation on catastrophe and connection.” The bones hung from the ceiling and the honey dripped down the walls.
Artists: Karen Abel, Jessica Marion Barr, Gareth Bate

A man looking at a series of small black & white prints in an art gallery

A timeline of the life of Conrad Black in black & white woodcut prints as shown at a gallery at 401 Richmond Street. Artist, George Walker

silhouettes of some people, on glowing pink and blue spheres

silhouettes
at Much Music, Queen Street West

The CN tower, with pink and blue lights, is in the background. In the foreground are people taking pictures with their phones. In the middle ground are a number of pink and blue lit spheres

phones lifted skyward

A woman is taking a picture of an art installation that is flat on a table. Twelve black & white framed prints are on the wall behind her.

Black & white art made using electric currents & little wires that spun in circles.
401 Richmond Street

An art installation featuring pictures of bicylces. Multicoloured.

bkies, bikes, bikes

A man is spray painting a piece of street art using aerosol cans of paint

spraying in the spotlight
On Dundas West near Beverley Street

Crowds, at night. Light is provided by fluorescent lights that spell out a short poem.

‘The rose is without why’ by Boris Achour.
This is a short poem written by Johannes Scheffler aka Angelus Silesius, in the 17th century. The words are written with fluorescent lights and is more than 300 feet long. It was bright enough to light up the square.

crowds at Nathan Phillips Square on the night of Nuit Blanche. Some people are standing on the upper level watching the crowds below.

upper level, Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square
On the left – ‘Forever Bicycles’ sculpture by Ai Weiwei lit in pink and purple. There are 3144 bicycles.
On the right – ‘Crash Cars’ by Alain Declercq consists of two driverless cars.

posing
These metallic figures were not part of Nuit Blanche. They are part of a sculpture close to the Court House on University Ave., just north of Queen St. West.

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