Nuit Blanche - over projected

Saturday night was Nuit Blanche, an all night contemporary art extravaganza that overtook downtown Toronto.

The excitement in the lead up to this event was fantastic. Everyone I know and everyone who knows people I know were all pumped to participate. Additionally; unlike last year's cold and wet climatic offerings; the weather was perfect for nocturnal wanderings on foot around the streets. My excitement grew when as my group of friends and I discovered that the TTC had sold out of tokens and day passes. Surely this event was going to be magnificent.

Indeed the numbers of people wandering from artwork to artwork around the city was impressive. The general atmosphere of good-willed curiosity and excitement was marvelous.

Unfortunately the art was anything but marvelous.

I preface my ramble on my dissatisfaction with the art by explaining that I am a huge supporter of contemporary art. I've seen everything from teddy bears covered in oatmeal; ants making patterns with string; murderer's portraits made of children's hand-prints; sharks in tanks of formaldehyde; and too many video and sound installations to shake a stick at. I'm not one of the cynics who shake their head at contemporary art and irritatingly say "my five-year old coudda done dat."

I can be a tough critic; if something has been too overdone, is too focused on trying to shock, or just plain idiotic; I am the first person to walk away shaking my head. However, if something hasn't completely reached resolution - but I can see that the idea was clever or interesting - I will be lenient and give it it's dues. If something is spectacular, even if it's really weird, I am the first to say I love it.

Sadly, on Saturday night there was a lot of head shaking and nothing worth bestowing leniency on, everything I saw was at best mediocre and at worst groan inspiring.

There seemed to be a mild obsession with using projections, but none of them were very good and few took into account or incorporated their physical placement. The success of last year's fog sculpture at Philosophers Way (which I LOVED) seemed to have everyone else obsessed with trying to ride on it's 'fog based' popularity - sadly without success.

The 'alien autopsy' was so pathetic it almost made me cross and the invitation by the conservation guy to 'write about how I feel about trees' on pieces of paper was so hypocritically ridiculous I could do nothing but stare.

As the evening faded to 4am, my friends and I held out one last hope for the art. There was a piece at the unused Bay Street Subway station that we hadn't seen. I'd never been to the 'hidden' station so if nothing else just getting down there would be a success. The station itself was cool; we all agree it would be a great venue for something; but the so-called 'sound installation' was so void that I won't even bother describing it.

Nuit Blanche is a wonderful concept that deserves praise but if they are to continue this event in future I would strongly recommend a significant review of the art selection process and the appointment of a decent (hopefully savage) curator. If they could lure some recognizable and acknowledged artists - who are actually talented - all the better. Otherwise I fear that if the event continues with such pathetic works on offer it will actually do contemporary art a great disservice.

All-in-all Nuit Blanche in it's current manifestation was over projected and it's resolution far too low to be replicated.