Nuit Blanche
Encyclopedia
Arts festival
An arts festival is a festival that focuses on the visual arts in all its forms, but which may also focus on or include other arts.Arts festivals in the visual arts are exhibitions and are not to be confused with the commercial art fair. Artists participate in the most important of such festival...
. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.
History
The Nuit Blanche concept came from Jean BlaiseJean Blaise
Jean Blaise is a French artistic director for special events.Blaise was born in 1951 in Algiers. His family left Algeria for the Parisian suburbs and settled in Ris-Orangis....
, who founded the Centre de recherche pour le développement culturel (Research Center for Cultural Development) in Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, in 1984. In 1989, the same year that the Helsinki Festival
Helsinki Festival
The Helsinki Festival is the largest multi-arts festival in Finland. It is also called Finland's biggest cultural event in terms of visitors...
established its Night of the Arts
Night of the arts
The Night of the Arts is an annual event held in several major cities in Finland, in late August. It is one of many White Night festivals held worldwide....
, "when every gallery, museum and bookshop is open until midnight or later and the whole city becomes one giant performance and carnival venue", Jean-Marc Ayrault
Jean-Marc Ayrault
Jean-Marc Ayrault is a French politician and a member of the French Socialist Party. He is currently Mayor of Nantes and President of the Socialist Party group in the French National Assembly....
became mayor of Nantes. His program included renovating the central city and establishing a "contemporary patrimony", which led Blaise to create a late-night cultural festival, "Les Allumées" ("The Lighted Up"). His concept was to have an arts festival in Nantes, 6 p.m. till 6 a.m., over six years with artists from six cities. They were as follows:
- BarcelonaBarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Oct. 15-20, 1990. - St. Petersburg, Oct. 14-19, 1991
- Buenos AiresBuenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Oct. 19-24, 1992 - NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Oct. 18-23, 1993 - CairoCairoCairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, Oct. 17-22, 1994 - HavanaHavanaHavana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, Oct. 16-21, 1995. (The Cuban government refused to issue travel documents to the 300 artists expected, so the event was formally canceled, though events did take place.)
In 1993, a year and a half after the St. Petersburg edition of Les Allumées, the annual White Nights Festival
White Nights Festival
The White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia is an annual international arts festival during the season of the midnight sun. The White Nights Festival consists of a series of classical ballet, opera and music events and includes performances by Russian dancers, singers, musicians and actors,...
in that city began adding a specifically cultural component to a longstanding annual event that included street carnivals and the Scarlet Sails
Scarlet Sails (tradition)
The Scarlet Sails is a celebration in St. Petersburg, Russia is the most massive and famous public event during the White Nights Festival. The tradition is highly popular for spectacular fireworks, numerous music concerts, and a massive water-show including battle among tens of boats full of...
celebration. The expanded White Nights Festival has included pop culture (e.g. the Rolling Stones in the open air at Palace Square
Palace Square
Palace Square , connecting Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge leading to Vasilievsky Island, is the central city square of St Petersburg and of the former Russian Empire...
) in 2007 and high culture
High culture
High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...
events ("Stars of the White Nights Festival" at the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
under Valery Gergiev
Valery Gergiev
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.- Early life :Gergiev,...
) every year since 1993.
In 1997, the Long Night of Museums
Long Night of Museums
The Long Night of Museums or the Night of Museums is a cultural event organized together by multiple museums and cultural institutions in a location during which the establishments remain open late into the night...
, took place in the newly re-united
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
with a dozen participating schools and exhibitions; the number has risen to 125, with over 150,000 people taking part in the January 2005 night.
In 2001, when Bertrand Delanoë
Bertrand Delanoë
Bertrand Delanoë is a French politician, and has been the mayor of Paris since 2001. He is member of the Socialist Party . Delanoë was born in Tunis, Tunisia to a French-Tunisian father and a French mother...
became Mayor of Paris, his deputy, Christophe Girard, invited Blaise to create an event there, and the Nuit Blanche was born. The concept of Les Allumées was scaled down to a single night and focused on the offerings of Paris. "The first night-time trail through the streets of Paris and its contemporary-art scene took place on 5 October 2002, and the opportunity for anyone to explore artistic creation for a night has come back every year since."
The idea of a night-time festival of the arts has spread around the world, with events in over 120 cities, including Toronto, Canada, and several European capitals (Paris, Brussels, Rome, Madrid, Riga, Bucharest and Valletta) which have chosen to pool their efforts as "Nuits Blanches Europe". The cities share their experiences and exchange projects and artists. Each year, new cities become candidates.