Nuit Blanche Promotional Barrage Recommences!

Nuit Blanche, Toronto's "all night contemporary art thing," is revving up the promotional engine for its October event, with a press conference today on the plans for this year's fest. I wasn't able to make the event—see the whole "working back-to-back freelance gigs in the freelance economy" explanation in my previous post—but I'm looking through the promo material and thought I'd pull out what look like few potential highlights. Here goes.

ZONE B - CURATORS JENNIFER FISHER AND JIM DROBNICK
These guys look like they have the most exciting lineup so far. It's also the most Canajun, eh?
-Monopoly with real money by Iain Baxter&
-A "rezzed-up pickup truck" performance by Rebecca Belmore
-Cotton candy and two free midway rides satirizing the economic collapse from Shawna Dempsey and Lori Millan
-Tarot reading and "divinatory encounters" courtesy of Fastwurms
- A new work by controversy-friendly Santiago Serra - not Canajun, but still sorta exciting

ZONE C - CURATOR MAKIKO HARA
Grab bag of interesting choices from a non-TO (ie. Vancouver!) curator
- Maria Legault's Apology Project, "55 people wearing large brown paper bags over their heads and bodies will congest a public walkway and personally apologize to every person who ventures through them." - apologies are also Canajun!
-Randy & Berenicci - A fabled Canuck performance duo comes back for Nuit Blanche. Gets the curiosity vote.
-Brandon Vickerd's choreographed 13-minute dance for two construction cranes (those better be real construction cranes, Vickerd, and not some miniature stand-in!)
-The One-Off Collective (no website) encourages people to build shelters out of canned food and also take food if needed, as well as donate. Gets the socially conscious vote.

ZONE A- CURATOR THOM SOKOLOSKI
Artist turns curator--will it really pan out?
-Battle Royal from Shaun El C. Leonardo, a performance piece where "20 men will step into a 17’ steel cage and fight blindfolded until one man is left standing."
-A new video installation from ye olde Bill Viola

ZONE A - CURATOR GREG ELGSTRAND
Going for a "down the rabbit hole" thing; not sure I buy it, but some of the individual pieces sound interesting.
-One of Jeff Koons' Rabbit sculptures
- An organ-music installation by loopy art darling Geoffrey Farmer
- Some sound thing by Katie Bethune-Leamen, in which I am curious how much Tupac Shakur she will sample. (She's done tons of drawings of him in the past.)

Also new this year:
-There will be more official road closures so pedestrians and cyclists can take over the streets with impunity, as opposed to last year's punity.
- The subway will run all night from Woodbine to Keele! From St Clair W to Eglinton! This is art in itself.

That's all I got. You'll know where to find me.

Image of last year's Nuit Blanche, namely Jillian Mcdonald's Zombies in Condoland project, from Nuit Blanche. Now doesn't that look like fun? (Image courtesy of the City of Toronto)