TonyV
Senior Member
"Eat Your Heart Out, Toronto Haters"
Meet my new best friend, Russell Smith (today's Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/eat-your-heart-out-toronto-haters/article1315483/
In 1996, I went on a writer's retreat in the Yukon. The people there were eager to show me the wonders of the place, and most were convinced that having seen them I would want to settle there. I remember running into a Whitehorse businessman at a reception; he asked me where I lived, and I muttered “Toronto” so that nobody else would hear, and he practically choked on his drink and said, his face a cartoon of horror, “Why?”
I started on about how if you're in the arts or media, all the power is there, and so are so many smart people because of the giant universities, and then there's all the money and its attendant fashion and restaurants, but I could tell pretty fast that all the art and media in the world weren't going to make up, in his mind, for the horrible traffic and the obligation to “dress up all the time.” And we know that this view is pretty common across the rest of the country too. Why, I know half of you reading this right now are contorting your faces with the delightful anticipation of feeling anger at yet another Toronto-centric article. I am going to give you this pleasure. I can't help it: I am going to do it to deliberately enrage you. It is a taunt.
Because we just had this massive all-night art party last weekend, called Nuit Blanche, which, if you live in a beautiful small town with a great garden and lots of parking, you don't have. It's a thing that seems to absorb the entire city for the preceding week, even those parts of the city that have no direct relation with art-making – and that, of course is the point of it. The preparations are massive and military. City workers are involved, from drivers to tourism officials; the banks are involved (one of them sponsors it; many of the installations take place in the financial core); taxi drivers mobilize; anyone who serves food or drink for a living gears up for a marathon. For one delirious week, the media – even the dull sports-and-traffic obsessed media – are all over abstruse, opaque, cerebral performance art: They are happily discussing Jeff Koons, throwing around the phrase “sound installation.”
But, delightfully, they are not trying to explain the art: There are no furrowed-brow inquiries into what the giant inflatable rabbit means; there is no bemoaning the lack of classic mastery of painting techniques; there is just a lot of practical advice on how to get there and what bars will stay open late. What this shows is that this tradition – now in its fourth year here – is having its desired effect. The citizens now understand, having experienced these odd interventions – projections, groups of people in costumes, giant inflatable rabbits – that this kind of art is not appreciable in terms of what it means, like a riddle: It's about a group experience. It only means what happens when there is a crowd interacting around it. If the artists had a clear message, they would have written an essay. (Some of them, of course, have done so: Those are the weaker ones.) People are going out in masses for that group experience. This represents the victory, really, of so-called impenetrable contemporary art: It has got around the problem of interpretation, it has shown a suspicious audience that their own reactions, unfiltered by museums' didactic panels and audio guides, constitute the work's explanation. The party is the message.
Which is why so many thousands dress up – in surprisingly flashy clothes for a long walk on a cold October night – and bus or drive in from suburbs and crowd the sidewalks all night. The dressing-up part seemed more determined this year. This season's elaborately patterned pantyhose and high leather boots were very much on display. There was a definitely sexual vibe in the air. As streams of people slowly pass each other on the sidewalk, they are checking each other out, and last Saturday night they were doing so quite openly. For some reason, I guess, when Torontonians think of art they think of sex.
It makes sense: It's easy to talk to an attractive stranger when you're both experiencing the same thing. Art appears to be the most powerful matchmaker since the Internet. I think Nuit Blanche is possibly the biggest singles party on the planet.
It helps when so much of the unofficial art is subtly or not so subtly sexual too: In every second shop window along Queen Street, there seemed to be people posing in backless dresses; in one store there was a demonstration of bondage techniques with live models. I wanted to see one official installation that involved crawling under the flowing red dress of a live model. There was a long queue waiting beside a sign forbidding the taking of pictures under the dress. And another sign warning that the wait to get in would be 75 minutes.
And still we have Conservative politicians saying that contemporary art is elitist and doesn't appeal to ordinary Canadians. And still Canadians around the country agree that people in Toronto are cold and unpleasant and that it's an awful place because there isn't enough parking.
It's true; there isn't enough parking. If that's really important to you, you should continue to look down on this place. Happy gardening.
Meet my new best friend, Russell Smith (today's Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/eat-your-heart-out-toronto-haters/article1315483/
In 1996, I went on a writer's retreat in the Yukon. The people there were eager to show me the wonders of the place, and most were convinced that having seen them I would want to settle there. I remember running into a Whitehorse businessman at a reception; he asked me where I lived, and I muttered “Toronto” so that nobody else would hear, and he practically choked on his drink and said, his face a cartoon of horror, “Why?”
I started on about how if you're in the arts or media, all the power is there, and so are so many smart people because of the giant universities, and then there's all the money and its attendant fashion and restaurants, but I could tell pretty fast that all the art and media in the world weren't going to make up, in his mind, for the horrible traffic and the obligation to “dress up all the time.” And we know that this view is pretty common across the rest of the country too. Why, I know half of you reading this right now are contorting your faces with the delightful anticipation of feeling anger at yet another Toronto-centric article. I am going to give you this pleasure. I can't help it: I am going to do it to deliberately enrage you. It is a taunt.
Because we just had this massive all-night art party last weekend, called Nuit Blanche, which, if you live in a beautiful small town with a great garden and lots of parking, you don't have. It's a thing that seems to absorb the entire city for the preceding week, even those parts of the city that have no direct relation with art-making – and that, of course is the point of it. The preparations are massive and military. City workers are involved, from drivers to tourism officials; the banks are involved (one of them sponsors it; many of the installations take place in the financial core); taxi drivers mobilize; anyone who serves food or drink for a living gears up for a marathon. For one delirious week, the media – even the dull sports-and-traffic obsessed media – are all over abstruse, opaque, cerebral performance art: They are happily discussing Jeff Koons, throwing around the phrase “sound installation.”
But, delightfully, they are not trying to explain the art: There are no furrowed-brow inquiries into what the giant inflatable rabbit means; there is no bemoaning the lack of classic mastery of painting techniques; there is just a lot of practical advice on how to get there and what bars will stay open late. What this shows is that this tradition – now in its fourth year here – is having its desired effect. The citizens now understand, having experienced these odd interventions – projections, groups of people in costumes, giant inflatable rabbits – that this kind of art is not appreciable in terms of what it means, like a riddle: It's about a group experience. It only means what happens when there is a crowd interacting around it. If the artists had a clear message, they would have written an essay. (Some of them, of course, have done so: Those are the weaker ones.) People are going out in masses for that group experience. This represents the victory, really, of so-called impenetrable contemporary art: It has got around the problem of interpretation, it has shown a suspicious audience that their own reactions, unfiltered by museums' didactic panels and audio guides, constitute the work's explanation. The party is the message.
Which is why so many thousands dress up – in surprisingly flashy clothes for a long walk on a cold October night – and bus or drive in from suburbs and crowd the sidewalks all night. The dressing-up part seemed more determined this year. This season's elaborately patterned pantyhose and high leather boots were very much on display. There was a definitely sexual vibe in the air. As streams of people slowly pass each other on the sidewalk, they are checking each other out, and last Saturday night they were doing so quite openly. For some reason, I guess, when Torontonians think of art they think of sex.
It makes sense: It's easy to talk to an attractive stranger when you're both experiencing the same thing. Art appears to be the most powerful matchmaker since the Internet. I think Nuit Blanche is possibly the biggest singles party on the planet.
It helps when so much of the unofficial art is subtly or not so subtly sexual too: In every second shop window along Queen Street, there seemed to be people posing in backless dresses; in one store there was a demonstration of bondage techniques with live models. I wanted to see one official installation that involved crawling under the flowing red dress of a live model. There was a long queue waiting beside a sign forbidding the taking of pictures under the dress. And another sign warning that the wait to get in would be 75 minutes.
And still we have Conservative politicians saying that contemporary art is elitist and doesn't appeal to ordinary Canadians. And still Canadians around the country agree that people in Toronto are cold and unpleasant and that it's an awful place because there isn't enough parking.
It's true; there isn't enough parking. If that's really important to you, you should continue to look down on this place. Happy gardening.
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