As I mentioned in my last post, the art festival may be becoming a victim of its own success. It happens here. Nuit Blanche started out five years ago as the Canadian version of an event hosted in cities like Paris and New York. It attracted thousands of people. mostly die hard arts lovers of which there are many in Toronto
Time goes on, word spreads then the event starts attracting people like Collette and myself; we are not gallery lurkers, up on every new artist who has a show in town but we do enjoy art and we do enjoy street festivals. So the art fest becomes more street fest with food vendors popping up and commercial institutes jumping in to take advantage
It was actually amusing some times as you wandered around, watching people trying to figure out if that light display about the deep emotional benefits of drinking Red Bull was a satirical comment on our reliance on advertising or an actual advert for Red Bull ...
What happens, when something becomes increasingly popular, is that it threatens to become less about the original intent (in this case the opportunity for artists to use public and open spaces) and more about people gathering to be an an event, any event
All summer long Toronto is a city of street festivals. Close off a street to traffic and you will attract people, lots of people. So Nuit Blanche has grown from thousands of people to, last year, hundreds of thousands of people
This year the estimated attendance was around one million. I have no doubt about that. Younge Street in particular was difficult to move about in. Last year we noted that a lot of young people were using this all night festival, with its extended public transut hours, as a party opportunity. I saw it as the normal evolution of the thing, that is what happens in Toronto
But something happened this year to give that natural evolution an artificial boost. No, there were no giant robots wandering around smearing us all with latex paint .. but how cool would that have been? Robots, not that's art!
Ahem
What really happened this year was that the city decided to extend serving hours in the bars. So people could drink themselves senseless until past 4 am. Now, isn't that how you want to appreciate art? Staggering half blind down a street with 100,000 other drunks?
I'm not being hypochritcal. Yes, I enjoy my beers (gosh, really Vic, should we make the news flash now??) and during the evening I enjoyed a pint with our dinner. But I don't go to Nuit Blanche to drink. If they didn't want to serve me a beer with my dinner I would not have cared. Collette and I go to look at the art, to see things we normally wouldn't see and to experience the excitement of being out on the city streets all night with a million of our closest friends ...
Drunken ass holes detract from the experience. I enjoyed some of the exhibits on lower Yonge St but it really became a huge party zone. Daniel Lanois was performing over at Nathan Phillips square and because there was music (well, barely music) it became a huge outdoor rave.
I enjoy the crowds. I love seeing people out on the streets so late at night, when normally our downtown core would be quiet as a grave. But I don't come down for a big drunken party or a rave. I was told that the Drake Hotel, which had several exhibits going on, had hallways filled with vomit
Mmmm art
It's one thing when people redefine an event. As Nuit Blanche has become more popular, the audience has certainly changed the environment somewhat. I think it's great that so many people are coming out to see this kind of art and performances and I absolutely love it when public or private spaces are used in this way.
But let the people decide. The gov't deciding that what we really need is more hours to get wasted is injecting an element right away, in one year, that may have take another three years to develop.
It's commerce over art I suppose. I have no problem with the food vendors setting up all night. I didn't even mind all the promo companies coming down. One of the more popular exhibits was Nuit Market, which brought the tacky old Weston Flea Market downtown in the middle of an art festival ... I loved that juxtaposition of Elvis on Velvet competing with art school grads
But let it all happen. How can this city say they want to promote art well at the same time making it far too easy for the party monsters to take the whole thing over.
I hope this trend doesn't become accelerated. We love Nuit Blanche. We'll continue to go. Perhaps it means avoiding areas like Yonge Stree or city hall which would be a shame, because there are often great exhibits there. People have the right to do what they like and enjoy an event as they like ... perhaps the city should understand that and let things evolve
Now, I think I'll go look at my new art book of images of dogs playing poker while I open a cold beer ...
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