2013 Exhibitions

From sunset to sunrise on Saturday, October 5, 2013 more than 110 contemporary art projects will captivate audiences across Toronto. City-produced Exhibitions are centralized downtown along the subway lines, while Independent Projects are located at various sites across the city. Full project details will be available this August.

City-produced Exhibition highlights

As a centrepiece installation for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei of China will create a new edition of his sculpture Forever Bicycles at Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square.

Off to a flying start

Curator: Ami Barak Exhibition: Off to a flying start

Curatorial statement
In 2013, we celebrate the centenary of Bicycle Wheel, Marcel Duchamp's first readymade. He combined a bicycle wheel and a stool - and it has become central to the very notion of Art and the artistic attitude towards objects. This century, objects found in the streets, chosen by artists, are displayed in museums. In the context of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche when the entire city becomes an open-air museum for one night we will take these objects back to the streets and reunite the public with the ubiquitous nature of the artwork.

—Ami Barak

Artists featured in this exhibition include: Toronto-based Kim Adams; Tadashi Kawamata of Hokkaido, Japan; Michel de Broin of Montreal and Pascale Marthine Tayou based in Ghent, Belgium.

PARADE

Curator: Patrick Macaulay Exhibition: PARADE

Curatorial statement
The format of a parade is archetypal; one that is well understood and consistent across the globe. A parade route is set. The audience stands on either side of the procession and observes the succession of spectacles.

The intent of PARADE is to create, at first glance, an unconventional parade. The floats do not move forward and the people, who would normally be stationary, become the procession by actively participating in the parade. In essence all parades require pageant + people. Scotiabank Nuit Blanche perhaps most patently encapsulates the power of this equation. This art parade is in fact putting the focus forward onto the spectator since, in truth; all parades are at their core a vehicle to create civic ceremony.

PARADE shifts the denotation of mere procession to be a large-scale art installation convoy. Artists and architects create the "floats" but unlike a gallery setting these works are placed in the street. How one views and understands these artworks is dependent on the stream of people moving down the street and interconnecting with the streetview itself. The PARADE is place and populace. The PARADE is art and occurrence.

—Patrick Macaulay

This exhibition will feature work by: Max Dean of Toronto; David R. Harper of Chicago; Toronto-based collaborators Claire Ironside & Ruth Spitzer and Libby Hague of Toronto.

Romancing the Anthropocene

Curator: Ivan Jurakic and Crystal Mowry
Exhibition: Romancing the Anthropocene

Curatorial statement
The Anthropocene, or age of man, is a term proposed by geologists and ecologists as a replacement for the Holocene, the current geological epoch that began over 10,000 years ago. The Anthropocene marks a distinct era after the advent of the Industrial Revolution, a period in which humanity has left an indelible mark on both the geological record and the ecosystem. At face value it acknowledges the triumph of science and human achievement but it also suggests a cautionary message regarding climate change, the destruction of natural habitat, resource depletion, and the extinction of plant and animal species.

Using the Anthropocene as our guiding principle, we want to address the complexities of this proposed new age within the context of the urban environment while addressing our enduring, and yet troubled relationship with the natural world.

—Ivan Jurakic and Crystal Mowry

Artists Brendan Fernandes of Toronto; Swoon of New York, USA; Kelly Richardson based in Whitley Bay, UK and Janet Biggs of New York, USA are participating in this exhibition.