Category Archives: Stavanger

Norway: NuArt Festival 2017 in Stavanger

Mais Menos

The city of Stavanger in Norway is getting ready for the world leading street art festival, NuArt. For its 17th edition, the festival will take place from the 31 st of August until the 3rd of September, with their indoor exhibition at Tou Scene staying on view through the 15th of October.

This year’s theme is POWER and through their work, the artists will discuss who has it, who doesn’t and how street art can challenge established power structures. “Nuart’s programs are designed specifically to explore and silently challenge the mechanisms of power and politics in public space” says Nuart Festival Founder and Director, Martyn Reed, and adds “This year’s Nuart Festival will bring together a diverse combination of  artists, activists and academics to reflect upon the fluidity of this transgressive new movement.”

12 artists from 10 countries spanning 4 continents will descend upon Stavanger:  Ampparito (ES),  Bahia Shehab (EG),  Carrie Reichardt (UK),  flyingleaps presents Derek Mawudoku (UK),  Ian Strange (AU),  John Fekner (US),  Know Hope (IL),  ±maismenos± (PT),  Igor Ponosov (RU),  Ricky Lee Gordon (ZA), Slava Ptrk (RU) , Vermibus (DE).

John Felkner - NuArt

John Felkner - NuArt

American artist John Fekner created a series of environmentally conceptual works consisting of words, symbols, and dates spray painted throughout the five boroughs of New York in the 1970s. He continued these text based interventions over the next few decades and earned a place in numerous museum collections across the US and Europe.

The Art of Politics

British ‘craftivist’ Carrie Reichardt blurs the boundaries between craft and activism, using the techniques of muralism, mosaics and screen-printing to create intricate, highly-politicised works of art. Active in community and public art projects for over 15 years, she has been designing and consulting on large-scale mosaic murals in various local communities.

know hope

Israli artist Addam Yekutieli aka Know Hope is best known for his emotive work that mixes written word and illustrative elements or photographs and even sculptures. Through his distinctive work, he often makes connections between difficult social-political situations and emotional conditions

Maismenos - NuArt

±MaisMenos± is the working title of an interventional art project by Portuguese visual artist and graphic designer Miguel Januário that started back in 2005 and became an entity of its own. As a part of this project, Januário has been producing thought-provoking, cutting-edge work both indoors and outdoors in a variety of media – from video to sculptural installations to painting and performance.

Aside from creating and showing new works by the participating artists, the festival will include its well known satellite program Nuart Plus consisting of academic and industry debates, artist presentations, film screenings, workshops and guided tours.

NuArt Festival
Until 15 October
Tou Scene
Kvitsøygata 25
4014 Stavanger, Norway

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Upcoming: Nuart Festival 15

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, Nuart Festival (see last year coverage here) will take place on the first week of September, 2015 in Norway. Renowned artists from around the world will come to the city of Stavanger with murals, installations and interventions and Tou Scene centre for contemporary arts, a former 19th century brewery, will host the festival’s indoor exhibition.

Nuart Festival 2015 artists include: Bordalo II (PT), Bortusk Leer (UK), Dolk (NO), Dotdotdot (NO), Ella & Pitr (FR), Ernest Zacharevic (LT), Futura (US), Harmen de Hoop (NL), Icy & Sot (IL), Isaac Cordal (ES), Jamie Reid (UK), Martha Cooper (US), Martin Whatson (NO), Outings Project (FR), Pejac (ES), Pixelpancho (IT). 

Lasco Project - Palais de TokyoNuArt - Ernest Zacharevic  Dot Dot Dot - NuArt   Martin Whatson - NuArt
NuArt - Icy & SotNuart - Dolk

Nuart will  also attempting  to create the world’s largest outdoor mural of 21,000m2 in Klepp on the outskirts of Stavanger with French artists Ella & Pitr  alongside partners Block Berge Bygg. In parallel, Sandra Chevrier (CA) will be introducing the Aftenblad Wall.

Nuart Plus, the festival’s annual symposium of academic and industry debates, artist presentations and film screenings will take place at Scandic Stavanger City hotel from Thursday 3 – Saturday 5 September. Here, key figures such as Evan Pricco (Juxtapoz), Jaime Rojo and Steven Harrington (Brooklyn Street Art) and critic and author Carlo McCormick will come together with artists and academics to delve into the culture’s roots and reflect on its place within the wider contemporary art canon.
Alongside the recurrent theme of Situationism, this year’s festival will explore notions of play and the ludic tendencies within street art and urban culture. From Jamie Reid – pioneer of the punk visual aesthetic – to conceptual artist Harmen de Hoop, photographer Martha Cooper and abstract graffiti pioneer Futura, leading practitioners from across the spectrum of street art will demonstrate how they approach their craft within the subject of play.

Find out more details about the programme and participants of this year’s event over at Nuartfestival.no.

Nuart 15
Festival: 3-5 September 2015
Exhibition: 6-11 October 2015

Video: Nuart Festival 2014 Recap

Hypebeast did a nice video recap of the Nuart Festival 2014 in Norway (covered here) with founder Martyn Reed and the participating artists.

NuArt Festival: Street Art and Activism

MAISMENOS - NuArt

With the growing rise of Muralism, it was a breath of fresh air to see activist artists pursuing their actions, whether through interventions in the streets of Stavanger or through the heated debates at NuArt Plus.
±MAISMENOS± (PT) played with letters to highlight political and media issues: Norway becomes No Way, the Medium is the Mess Age, while SPY (ES) uses blacklight to show T error.

MAISMENOS - NuArt     MAISMENOS - NuArtMAISMENOS - NuArt     NuArt

Icy & Sot (IR) stencils depicted images of war, peace and society issues.

Icy & Sot - NuArt  Icy & Sot - NuArt   Icy & Sot - NuArtIcy & Sot - NuArt

The floating rocks from Andreco (IT) paid tribute to nature and ecology, while Levalet (FR) created installations with reference to the oil issue.

Andreco - NuArt   Levalet - NuArt   Levalet - NuArt  Levalet - NuArt Levalet - NuArt

Media is also a hot topic for activist artists like John Felkner (US), and Fra.Biancoshock (IT) provocative piece on social media definitively generated a multitude of reactions, while the Facebook wall from Mathieu Tremblin (FR) in a tunnel of Stavanger invited the public to interact.

John Felkner - NuArt John Felkner - NuArt   Fra.Biancoshock - NuArt  MAISMENOS - NuArtMathieu Tremblin - NuArt

View the full set of pics here

 NUART 2014
September 7-October 12
Tou Scene (Kvitsøygaten 25, 4012 Stavanger, Norway

NuArt Festival: Borondo

Borondo - NuArt

Known for his large scale expressionistic portraiture and his “glass scratching’ painting technique, Spanish artist Borondo created an oudoor mural as well as an indoor installation for the Nuart Festival.

Borondo -  NuArt
Borondo - NuArt

The indoor installation features a quirky wooden house which lines look like they come out of a Scandinavian fairy tale.
In parallel a selection of scratch-painted windows have been suspended. Playing with light and shadows, viewers can see an image on the window, while its shadowy reflection on the wall shows added or different elements. For example a skull projects a shadow of a face, a tree of life comes out of a female body, and so on. The public reaction is impressive as they are left confused and wondering how did this happen?

Borondo - NuArt
Borondo - NuArtBorondo - NuArt

View the full set of pics here