Because the Night: Curating One-Off Nocturnal Events

The article focuses on Nuit Blanche, a night-time art event that began in Paris, France, in 2002 and has since spread to other cities in Europe and North America. Highlighting the social aspects of art that is experienced as part a large group, the article considers issues of urban branding, gentrification and the rhetoric of the creative city, populism, civic spectacle, and the attention economy.

Discussing the public's participation in performance and artists who have exhibited work at these events, the article considered projects by artists including Jon Sasaki in a zone of Nuit Blanche Toronto curated by Dave Dyment, and Santiago Sierra, Shawna Dempsey and Lori Millan, Iain Baxter&, and Dan Mihaltianu in a zone curated by DisplayCult for Nuit Blanche Toronto.

Reckitt also reflected on her own curation of the zone ‘Once More With Feeling’ Toronto’s Nuit Blanche in 2012 (with artists including Trisha Brown Dance Company, Susan Stenger, Maeve Brennan and Ruth Ewan,) and her imminent curation of Flux Night: Free Association, in Atlanta, including the participation of artists including the Open Music Archive, Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, Deanna Bowen, and Heather Phillipson.