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).
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.
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.
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± 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 2015
Celebrating its 15th anniversary, Nuart Festival (see previous 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).
Find out more
Video: Nuart Festival 2014 Recap
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.
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?
View the full set of pics here
Full article about Borondo here
Nuart 2014 : Street Art and Activism
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.
Icy & Sot (IR) stencils depicted images of war, peace and society issues.
The floating rocks from Andreco (IT) paid tribute to nature and ecology, while Levalet (FR) created installations with reference to the oil issue.
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.
View the full set of pics here
Sainer and Bezt of the Etam Cru kick started the NuArt Festival in Norway, illustrating a little school boy fallen asleep. Looking at the content of his bag, it seems to have been a busy day, between the lessons from his storybook and some spraypraint activities. So tired that he left his lunch half eaten, much to the delight of a little mouse posing on top.
NuArt International Street Art Festival based in Stavanger is due to open on 6 September. Founder and Director Martyn Reed and his team have been running the non for profit festival since 2005, and it has grown into one of the leading global art festival, showcasing pioneers and emerging talents within the street art scene.
From the first week of September an invited international team of street artists will start to leave their mark on the city’s walls, both indoor and out, including: Andreco (IT), Borondo (ES), Dotdotdot (NO), Etam Cru (PL), Fra.Biancoshock (IT), Icy & Sot (IR), John Fekner (US), Leval (FR), M-City (PL), Martin Whatson (NO), Mathieu Tremblin (FR), SPY (ES), Strøk (NO), Tilt (FR), ± Maismenos ± (PT).
In parallel NuArt Plus series will host a series of workshops, panel discussions and film screenings.
For the full programme check here
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