Nuit Blanche 2010 Toronto

Today is the annual Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night) in Toronto.  Since 2006, the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche annual event has drawn hundreds of thousands of people from Toronto and surrounding cities each year.  It's a night of event that showcases artwork all around Toronto from dusk to dawn.  Most major art galleries, and art venues are open to the public, free of charge.

This event is perfect for photo opportunities.  Many photography buffs are out all night photographing.  This year is the first time that I actually headed out, partly because CubeWorks in the Distillery District was finishing up it's world's largest piece of artwork made of cubes, and Dillon, as well as few other speed cubers, had been helping to create this artwork for the last few weeks.  The Daily Planet show from Discovery Channel was there to film its completion.  In fact, they installed time-lapse cameras at the studio from the beginning.  The artwork, "The Hand of God" was made up of 12,090 cubes and took months by the speed cubers to complete.  It's an amazing feast, and hard to imagine until you see it.  It's being displayed at building #4 in the Distillery District if you are interested to see it.

The last panel completed -- 1D IIn & EF 16-35mm f2.8 II. Click to enlarge.

Completed "The Hand of God" -- 1D IIn & EF 16-35mm f2.8L II. Click to enlarge.

Part of Nuit Blanche -- 1D IIn & EF 16-35mm f2.8L II. Click to enlarge.

Saxophone Player -- 1D IIn & EF 16-35mm f2.8L II. click to enlarge.

Cube Art

Eric Limeback is a celebrity among Canadian speed cubers.  My kids, especially the older two, see him as a hero, a role model.  In fact, Eric appeared in Oprah once, and was interviewed by many media.  The Toronto Star ran an article on him about a week ago.  My kids found out that he works at CubeWorks in the Distillery District, and dragged me there to see him work.

It's fascinating to see pictures (sorry, art) created using just cubes.  The art pieces range from small ones using around 100 cubes to the gigantic Sistine Chapel made up of more than 250,000 cubes.  These art pieces are not cheap. The prices depends on the size, from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars for the Sistine Chapel.

It's an eye opener, especially for an art blind person like me.

 

The CubeWorks Studio. You can see Eric and Sarah Strong (another amazing cuber) unpacking the cubes. Click to see larger.

 

The newly finishned Campbell's Soup piece. Click to see larger.

 

This is my favourite piece. The original has more pieces at the bottom. I had to crop it slightly due to some boxes at the bottom that I could not avoid. Click to enlarge.

You can find more pictures of art pieces in my gallery here.