 "Photo: Parislogue.com")
A gigantic disco ball in the middle of the Jardin de Luxembourg, an abandoned DJ stadium with neon lights playing electronic music, red waterfalls behind a lawn of golden cardboard discs like stars fallen from the sky, a field of opened-up, spread out red umbrellas, numerous desk lamps by a little stream elegantly illuminating the water, the stones, the people in the Park Buttes Chaumont, over-dimensional light crystals on the Notre Dame—these are just some of the many installations for “Nuit Blanche,” one night for the people of Paris to see and interact with contemporary art.
The concept of the “Nuit Blanche” (All-Nighter) originated in St. Petersburg, Berlin and Paris. It was in 2002 that Christophe Girard, deputy mayor of Paris responsible for culture, proposed to Bertrad Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, to create a night when the entire center of the city becomes an exhibition place, dedicated to contemporary art. Often confused with modern art —artistic work formed mostly in the 60s and 70s with a tendency to abstract forms— contemporary art is one of the least understood and often the most underappreciated art forms of our time. Contemporary art is often defined as currently produced art or, as most contemporary art museums define it, art produced since World War II.
This year’s eighth annual “Nuit Blanche” attracted 1.5 million visitors, 15 percent more than last year. Although many of the visitors are tourists, Parisians also participate in the excitement of “Nuit Blanche” since this event places contemporary art in their urban context, encouraging certain conviviality. Besides art installations, “Nuit Blanche” also hosts music, film and dance performances as well as social gatherings throughout the city.
It is not only the interaction between the people and the art that defines the exceptionality of this night, but also the merger of urban and natural existence and a much French-adored contact between the old and the new. “Don’t leave the lights on,” an installation of desk lamps from the 70s throughout the Park Buttes Chaumont by Norwegian artist Rune Guneriussen, for example, relocates these commonly used objects into the environment of savage nature. By turning the lights on and off and bending the desk lamps in different ways, the spectator gives life to a seemingly dead object. “Cristaux,” a work by Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury, transformed the immense gothic cathedral Notre Dame into a novel benchmark covered with colored crystals. This installation, first created in 2001, questions the “untouchability” of historical monuments that is often present in Western Europe. Canadian artist Michel de Broin’s incredible “La Maîtresse de la Tour Eiffel,” the humongous disco ball in the Jardin de Luxembourg, brings the stars back to urban skies through reflections of light that appear on the clouds because of the man. Unfortunately, “Nuit Blanche” is truly a one-night event and the sun starts rising far too early to visit all the participating sites.
“Nuit Blanche” – although you cannot escape the usual drunks and confused faces in the presence of a night long spectacle and contemporary art – makes it possible for everybody to participate in the much controversial and extremely interesting discussion of what constitutes art.
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