As my companion said as we traipsed home, “I’ve been Halifaxed one too many times now”. What the fuck happened to this year’s Nocturne? We, with a sea of others herded from Bishop’s landing to Pier 21 in search of art. What did we all find? A lame ass Pong thing which didn’t work, nothing, more nothing, then some real art in a gallery we can go to anytime, then a sad, sad huge rocking horse with ooooooh a synched clop clop sound and some fucking rope lights, then a place to omg Draw With Markers On Paper. Oh and let’s not forget the “interactive” pottery where we had the great privilege of filling out a ballot to win a piece of last year’s participants’ pieces; tiny pottery blobs created by 6 year olds, the likes of which I toss out on a weekly basis. Thank you. And here’s a big beef: If a (albeit artistically sound) performance piece is full of massive aggression and extreme profanity, put up a fucking warning for parents before they pile into the theatre with their toddlers to be subjected to a performer yelling “Balls, Dicks, Fuckers” and “I Hate You!” repeatedly at your infant who then wails, terrified. This year’s Nocturne was woefully organized and a classic example of Shit Plus One. If all the art around you is shit, all you need to do to stand out is do One better, and that’s just not good enough. Next year, let more and real artists do their thing, otherwise call it Open Gallery night. It used to be the best night of the year. —I Miss the Real Noturne
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2014.
Best performance art piece was on the 52. 3 urban moms, with Escalade sized strollers and an aggregate age of 29 furiously texting and passing comments about the knobs on Shayquonne’s dick,
Halifaxed? They are a keeper, that is fantastic.
WHAT IS ART? A HERMENEUTICAL EXAMINATION
“If all the art around you is shit, all you need to do to stand out is do One better, and that’s just not good enough.” I Miss the Real Nocturne
Rather than directly engage the question as to what art might – or might not – be I have chosen to approach the question by engaging in hermeneutics. What is hermeneutics? It is a Post-Modern approach which rejects some metaphysical conception of what art “really” is and simply engages the text, in this case the bitch itself. As the hermeneuticists say – they’re French for the most part – “Il y a rien dehors la texte.” (“There is nothing outside the text.”) So what can be gleaned from a hermeneutical examination of the text at hand?
The bitcher engages in self-contradiction on two points: (1) If he understands art, to be art, must be good in some fashion or other, then his claim that the art around him might be “shit” is self-contradictory. In other words, art cannot both be art and shit at the same time. (2) In the same way, in the absence of some account of what “One better” might possibly mean, it is incoherent to claim that in order to stand out one need only do “One better.” In other words, the phrase “One better” is conceptually empty.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
(Avatar #59: A $1 note from The Bank of Nova Scotia)
I could not agree more. There were a couple cool, low key things… mostly nothing interesting and nothing on a grand scale. It was my sig. others first time and it was kind of embarrassing/ pathetic how much it sucked after how excited I was to go.
The best thing we saw was a screening of a Buster Keaton film at St. Mathew’s Church. The organist’s accompaniment was pretty cool.
For next year’s nocturne I propose putting together a hiphop band for a one night only performance. The “Bitchin’ Thr33” would feature MontrealMan throwin’ down some Shakespearien- inspired spoken word accompanied by Ivan scratching some discs on the turntable and Mr. Meaty doing some hard core beat-boxing. How about it guys? Could be the hit of Nocturne 2015.
I agree. The past 2 or 3 years its been pretty hit&miss from one art piece to the next, with more miss than hit. And I still get excited every year leading up to it. Not next year, though.
They should call it Nocturnt. I think that would be really Bae.
*the teens say nothing*
Tip for parents: Don’t bring your fucking toddlers. Hire a babysitter like people used to fucking do.
Tip for everyone else: Nocturne took a nose dive since 2012, don’t bother.
Please and yes. WTF happened to it?
Insert comments from the superawesome arty community….here /
AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN. ..’nothing, nothing, more nothing.’
EXACTLY.
I ain’t hard to please, either.