Akimblog
Halifax
Nocturne: Art at Night
posted by Sue Carter Flinn - November 18th, 2008.
Admittedly, when I first heard that Nocturne - an east coast sister to Nuit Blanche - was shutting down at midnight, I didn’t have high expectations for Halifax’s first nighttime arts festival. But I shouldn’t have worried about the early hours; Nocturne, with twenty-eight galleries and twenty-four installations and performances, reflected the best of the city’s art scene: a community effort that really focused on art and participant experience.
Adriana Kuiper, Capsule
Unfortunately, Adriana Kuiper’s installation Capsule on the Dalhousie University campus may have been missed by many, as it was challenging (but worthwhile) to find. Kuiper has built a temporary storm or fallout shelter out of PVC piping and corrugated metal. It’s about twelve feet long; big enough for two people to crawl inside. This was the first time that I’d seen Kuiper’s shelters outside of a gallery setting and there was something less playful and much more ominous about discovering an empty shelter at night - as if its inhabitants had been eliminated. Capsule is also about communication without the luxury of technology: built into the shelter and scattered throughout the campus, Kuiper placed PVC mailboxes. Postcards are available at the Dalhousie Art Gallery and visitors are encouraged to leave messages for each other in the mailboxes. Imagine a situation where university students must exchange text messaging for old-fashioned notes. Good luck.
Susan Dobson, Temporary Architecture
At Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, Susan Dobson’s Temporary Architecture turns big-box stores into literally nameless big boxes by digitally filling in the structures’ shapes with drab grey. Backdropped by startling blue skies, there’s a juxtaposition of fake cheeriness set against the well-worn, deserted parking lots. It’s as if a part of the landscape had been cut away. But don’t worry, another cookie-cutter building will be along soon to take its place.
Adrian Fish
Dobson’s subjects are inescapably lifeless when compared to Adrian Fish’s photos of empty theatres at Studio 21. For two years Fish documented performative spaces and even without audiences there’s a sense of excitement and human activity in these images. They also present a view that most non-performers will never see. Exactly who is the spectator here?
Suzanne Caines, Door Knocking
On the side of a downtown office tower, the image of Suzanne Caines knocking on a door in her video Door Knocking is out of step with the loud, banging audio which came from a source across the street. It’s not my favourite piece of Caines', whose work deals with social interactions. It lacks the subtle humour of her video A Little Town in France/Marnay-sur-Seine where she placed a homemade Halifax Mooseheads banner on the front of the tiny town's bar and taped the locals' confused reactions. It was entertaining though, in part because of its close proximity to Scott Saunders and Nikolai Gauer’s video projection of two eyes staring out of an empty retail shop.
Scott Saunders and Nikolai Gauer
Watching drunken bar-goers interact with Wes Johnson’s Phantom Stacks was amusing too. As they would step on a sidewalk hot spot, smoke and various lights appeared on an empty platform behind a metal fence. It took some people a while to get the cause and effect of what was going on.
Yo Rodeo!, Three Dee Realms opening
At blink!, a new space in the historic properties, Yo Rodeo! presented Three Dee Realms, an exhibition of anaglyphic 3D screenprints best viewed with the old-school 3D glasses provided. The show marks a departure for the duo, who are moving away from design work (they’re best known for their band posters, including those for the Polaris Prize) and more into a contemporary art practice. The motifs are still familiar though: spirals, animals, and futuristic cityscapes. And there is nothing funnier than an exhibition opening where everyone’s wearing those glasses.
Lisa Lipton, High on a Hill performance at Khyber ICA
My one big disappointment for the night was going to see Lisa Lipton’s High on a Hill at the Khyber ICA. I heard that the video was not working earlier in the evening, so I came back for the late-night instrumental music performance, featuring Lipton, her i see rowboats bandmate Will Robinson and artist/drummer Eleanor King, all sporting lederhosen. The music sounded great, but the place was so jammed that it was difficult to see the performers and I could not get a sense of the multimedia installation, which I know deals with Hollywood clichés and utopian romance in a time of environmental disaster. Lipton has a wonderful flair for the theatrical, but sadly all I saw was the Miss Heidi doll, rappelling over the heads of chatting arts-goers.
All told, Nocturne was a success (without major corporate sponsorships!) because it focused on the work. Over five thousand people participated on an evening which also fell on the same day as Halifax’s municipal election (to put it in context: more people came to look at art than voted in many districts). My only suggestion is that in future years more alternative spaces can be animated. I’d love to see art take over the Halifax Common and the Public Gardens one day.
Sue Carter Flinn is a Halifax-based writer, editor and artist. She is Arts Editor at The Coast, Halifax's alternative newspaper; editor of Visual Arts News, the only publication dedicated to visual arts in Atlantic Canada; and winner of a 2007 Atlantic Journalism Award for her profile of photographer George Steeves.
Nocturne: http://www.nocturnehalifax.ca/
Adriana Kuiper: Capsule continues until November 30.
Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery: http://smuartgallery.ca/
Susan Dobson: Temporary Architecture continues until November 23.
Studio 21: http://www.studio21.ca/
See website for current exhibitions.
blink!: http://blinkgalleryhalifax.blogspot.com/2008/09/recording-artist-teaset-by-kyla-francis.html
See website for current exhibitions.
Khyber ICA: http://khyberarts.ns.ca/
See website for current exhibitions.