The 11th annual Nuit Blanche is held tonight in the streets of Toronto, beginning at 7pm and running until early tomorrow morning. This year features projects by David Hammons, Arturo Duclos, Santiago Sierra, Shary Boyle, Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, John Akomfrah, Bill Viola, and countless others. Below is a quick selection of some book-related projects:
Kelly Jazvac
Browsing
David Mirvish Books, 596 Markham Street
David Mirvish Books closed its doors after more than three decades in early 2009. It was the city's largest bookstore dedicated to art, design and photography. The two-story round building (once a gallery) housed a 50-foot-long Frank Stella painting and the store often employed artists as sales staff. London-based artist Kelly Jazvac worked there in the store's final years, and returns tonight with a collage of salvaged billboards, animated by industrial fans.
Literature vs. Traffic
Old City Hall
In a project curated by Camille Hong Xin, the anonymous collective from Madrid will present a river of open books illuminated by individual lanterns. Thousands of used books were donated by the Salvation Army and visitors are encouraged to take one home with them tonight.
John Shipman
100 Libraries. 99 Books
St. Matthew's United Church, 729 St. Clair Avenue West
Each of the 100 libraries consists of a desk structure, a reading light, an illuminated sign, and a tethered book. The miniature libraries stand in for public or private libraries and bookstores from across Canada, North America and beyond. The event is child-friendly, with ten of the libraries dedicated to children's books on a carpeted platform and workshops on bookmaking and calligraphy.
Bruce Nauman
Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk)
Union Station, West Wing, 65 Front Street West
A single-channel fixed camera video from 1968, Slow Angle Walk, captures Nauman repeating a laborious sequence of body movements for nearly an hour. The work was inspired by passages in books by Samuel Beckett, where characters walk with stiffened legs or an unbalanced and awkward gait. Nauman recorded the video with the camera on its side so that he appears to be walking up a wall.
Nuit Blanche takes place from sunset to sunrise tomorrow morning. Visit the website, where projects are organized by artist name, project title or venue, here, or use the mobile guide tonight, here.
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