2025 Nuit Blanche: Smash…Crash…Gambit

Shop Window Installation on Display from Sunset to Sunrise, Saturday, October 4, 2025.

Rocky Dobey’s monumental copper plate, Smash…Crash…Gambit, shows a giant etching press surrounded by fragments of text that unfold like a fairytale about printmaking and the sharing of knowledge. The image recalls the story of Sleeping Beauty : a kingdom lying dormant, overgrown with thorns, waiting to awaken. In Dobey’s vision, the press itself comes alive, ready to share information once again, its purpose renewed through use and through storytelling.

The copper plate is etched with mirrored text that reveals its full tale only when printed. The work celebrates the tactile, crafted nature of printmaking in today’s age of automation.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly prominent through hidden, black-box systems, the press stands as a counter-symbol of transparency and resistance. Historically central to the circulation of knowledge, it reminds us of the value of seeing how things are made and of engaging with visible, hands-on processes.

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Rocky Dobey began anonymously installing street art in Toronto over five decades ago, using xeroxed posters, agitprop billboards, concrete sculptures, lacquered books, and political plaques. Today, his practice includes intaglio prints, copper sculptures, and large etched works enhanced with materials such as porcelain paint and tar. While the scale and techniques have evolved, his work continues to explore the same political and social concerns that animated his early street interventions. Recent exhibitions include Power at OCADU’s Onsite Gallery and Civilization and its Discontents at Gagné Contemporary.