Did you go to Toronto’s “All Night Contemporary Art Thing” – Nuit Blanche this year?
What did you think – Did you LOVE it or LOATHE it?

Fujiko Nakaya’s fog installation at philosopher’s walk at Nuit Blanche 2006. Image: topleftpixel.com

The organizers blocked of Yonge Street – was this a good thing?

How did the art fare? Better or worse than last year?

What were your favorite installations? Least favorite?

Let us know – Nuit Blanche will only improve if we generate a discussion on what worked, and what didn’t.

Please comment below!

I love this proposal by German artist Katharina Fritsch for London’s Fourth Plinth. I love that it appears to be in International Klein Blue, which I blogged about a while ago.

Katharina Fritsch, Hahn / Cock. Image: london.gov.uk

As you probably know, the empty plinth has been a site for artistic proposals over the past few years, including Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley and one of my favorite artists, Thomas Schütte.

Originally designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1841 to display an equestrian statue which was never completed, the empty plinth became a site for contemporary art in 1998.

Six proposals – all very good – by Allora & Calzadilla, Elmgreen & Dragset, Katharina Fritsch, Brian Griffiths, Hew Locke, and Mariele Neudecker can be seen at DeZeen, HERE.

Read more about the Fourth Plinth program HERE.

Since I haven’t been away – yet – this summer, my favorite summer show is in Toronto, at one of my favorite galleries.

Flavio Trevisan, The Three Dales, 2010. Image: flaviotrevisan.com

With the mayoral debate gearing up and the fact that Torontonians seem obsessed with urban issues and how to evolve our ward-centric patchwork quilt of a city, this show is particularly relevant.

Flavio Trevisan: Studies of a New Past
Diaz Contemporary
Through August 14, 2010

Hurry – don’t miss it, it’s definitely worth seeing in person.

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The 2010 Power Ball, the annual fundraiser for Toronto’s Power Plant Gallery, took place June 3, and took as its theme ‘The Ball that Started it All‘, which, it turned out, worked well!

All photos VoCA/Scott Barker.

Billed as “a carnivalesque line-up of amazing art, extraordinary entertainment, and spectacular prizes“, it aimed to “remix the best of the best from Power Ball’s glorious (and often notorious) past.”

Click below to see lots more photos…

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Though watching Ryan Trecartin’s films aren’t entirely a waste of time, it sure feels that way at the time. The hyper-intense mix of screeching voices, messily-costumed performers and banal scenarios come across like a reality tv show of drag queens on crack.

Ryan Trecartin, Still from A Family Finds Entertainment, 2004. Image: kera.org

Watch one of Trecartin’s videos on Youtube, HERE.

The videos on view at Toronto’s Power Plant (until May 24, 2010 – click HERE) reminded me of the at-first-hideous-but-in-hindsight-kind-of-brilliant film Idiocracy, “about the demise of North American civilization. America, 500 years into the future, has become a place where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant resulting in a uniformly stupid human society.” (Thanks, Wikipedia – and Jennifer)

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DESIGN IS THE NEW ART.

Art used to be able to change the way we see the world, but aside from the terrifying German artist Gregor Schneider, we can’t really think of any that does today. Design, on the other hand, has been proven to house displaced people, heal the terribly ill, rescue the desperately poor, possibly even save the environment.

David Rokeby, Quaver, (2002-2010), interactive video installation, still. Image: parinadimigallery.com

Canadian artists like David Rokeby (whose show at Pari Nadimi Gallery just opened in Toronto) designs computer interfaces for his artworks that have been used for medical purposes. Amazing.

Ever since Bruce Mau brought his overly wordy, curatorially-challenged but conceptually brilliant exhibition, Massive Change to the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2008, we have known that Design Can Change the World. Add Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, who gave a riveting talk at OCAD earlier that same year, and the message is clear.

We can no longer sustain design for design’s sake. It’s an outdated idea. Design must be used to solve problems, and educational institutions should be the ones preaching this to students.

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In recent years, among Torontonians, there seems to have been increased interest and passion for the city.

I heart Toronto. Image: igougo.com

Spacing magazine, Yonge Street, Blog TO, Torontoist, Murmur, the ROM and the AGO, Waterfront Toronto‘s plans for the city (heavily covered by the Globe and Mail’s Lisa Rochon), they all speak to wanting to better our urban environment.

A recent article in the Toronto Star says:

“For decades, there has been talk of an actual, physical museum, where Torontonians could learn about the history of this piece of land from the post-ice age era through our ongoing waves of immigration.

As recently as 2007, the museum project was (to be) built inside the old Canada Malting silos on Queens Quay. But then came the recession,…and the funding and political will fell through (again).”

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VoCA loves our GG.  She understands the value of arts and culture.  Last week in Montreal, Governor General Michaëlle Jean gave this statement: “Culture must be able to express itself everywhere and always, and be accessible to as many people as possible, for it bears within it our choices, our hopes, our memory and our imagination.”

I See What You Mean, the Big Blue Bear at the Colorado Convention Center. Image: denvergov.org

On the evening of March 1, culture-minded Torontonians gathered at a Town Hall meeting to protest the City Council’s rejection of BeautifulCity.com’s initiative to have taxes from advertising billboards going toward arts and culture.

Check out past blog posts on that topic HERE and HERE.

It might not seem like a big deal, but it points to the fact that the arts community must keep fighting for recognition of the importance of art in Toronto. It’s the most obvious difference between Toronto and cities like Chicago and Montreal.

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Well.  Last night I did a “Face the Critic” at the Drake, with Leah Sandals and Richard Vaughn and it was…interesting, to say the least. I didn’t feel able to properly articulate my views – there were some big personalities in the room. But I learned a lot, and it’s always good to have your foundations shaken a little.

Brendan Flanagan, Reflective Pool. Image: brendanflanagan.ca.

The idea was that each critic would bring two works – one we ‘love’ and one we ‘loathe.’

Richard began by pointing out that he doesn’t subscribe to the idea of ‘loving’ or ‘loathing’, which is fair enough. Then he went on to talk at length, and very interestingly, about how much he loved an Allyson Mitchell work – one of her large, fun-fur covered Sasquatch sculptures.

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Join us TONIGHT for a FREE evening of art criticism as Leah Sandals, RM Vaughn and myself debate works by Judy Chicago, Kent Monkman and Vanessa Beecroft, among others.

Loved vs. Loathed.

A Louis Vuitton-inspired work by Vanessa Beecroft. Art?…..or hype? Image: femka.com

Are you ready?

More HERE.