nuit blanche | paris 2011

1 October 2011

On Saturday, Paris stayed up all night in the name of art. All over the city, museums stayed open and from le Marais to Montmartre, 80 commissioned works were tucked into courtyards, displayed in the street, and projected on buildings. Nuit Blanche, or “White Night,” for Anglophones, is a once a year festival conceptually pioneered by Jean Blaise in Nantes as “Les Alumenees” in the 1980s and begun in Paris in 2002. Since then, it has inspired more than 120 similar festivals throughout Europe, Canada, and Australia.

Though Paris’ first Nuit Blanche was not without its difficulties, most notably the stabbing of mayor Bertrand Delanoë, on this, it’s tenth anniversary, the biggest problem is squeezing into metro cars. An estimated 2.5 million cultural revelers roamed both underground and the packed streets in the participating quartiers, and they did so with joie de vivre. On an unseasonably warm night, surrounded by incredible works literally around every corner, it was hard not to make friends

L’experience, in photos:

L’Hôtel d’Albret, Le Marais, 8 p.m.

Pierre Ardouvin’s participatory ,Prince-inspired “Purple Rain” exhibit brought the song to life as it transformed Hôtel d’Albret into a pulsating, sensory purple storm of music and color. For those who braved the long entry line (at peak hours more than three blocks long) the reward was living a long awaited dream, umbrellas included.