Upcoming: Nuart Festival 15

August 12, 2015 butterfly

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).

Dot Dot Dot - NuArt Martin Whatson - NuArt

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

Malaga, Shows

Malaga: Shepard Fairey – ‘Your Eyes Here’ @CAC Malaga

July 30, 2015 butterfly 1 Comment

Los Angeles-based artist Shepard Fairey is having his first solo exhibition in a Spanish museum at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, curated by Fernando Francés. With over 300 pieces, this is the largest body of work from Shepard Fairey to ever be exhibited. The retrospective ‘Your Eyes Here’ spans over 25 years, and features paintings, silkscreens, stencils, stickers, illustrations, collage, photographs, sculptures and works in wood and metal. The show is structured in thematic sections that retrace Fairey’s artistic influences like music, politics – war and peace – and environmental issues. There are also selected examples of his early works, street art and portraits of musicians, artists and activists, as well as an impressive collection of his screenprints, an essential part of his production.

Shepard Fairey - Your Eyes Here Malaga

In parallel to the museum exhibition, he and his team also painted a new ‘Mujer Fatal’ mural in the Soho district and some Obey Giant paste up and stencils could be found across the streets of Malaga.

View the full set of pics from the exhibition here

Shepard Fairey – Your Eyes Here
CAC Malaga
Until 25 September 2015

London

London: Complicit @ Coates & Scarry

July 16, 2015 butterfly

Coates & Scarry are hosting a group exhibition Complicit featuring a collection of artworks by a trio of strong female artists: Kate MccGwire, Juliette Losq, and Jayne Anita-Smith. Each artwork acts as a sensory invitation to explore other worlds and the show as a whole offers a place for unique and unsettling encounters. Returning from Glasstress 2015 Gotika at the 56th Venice Biennale and a recent show at the RWA Bristol with Peter Randall Page, renowned British sculptor Kate MccGwire creates original sculptures through multiple techniques and materials including paper, glass and a variety of bird feathers that are transformed with swirling or concentric forms. An overflowing vase with ondulating waves of feathers, kaleioscopic creations, and unconventoional scultptures challenge the viewer to think about the relationship between human and nature.

Complicit @ Coates & Scarry

Similarly disconcerting qualities can be found within Juliette Losq’s two-dimensional and installation pieces. Highlighting neglected and abandoned semi-urban landscape clearings strewn with rubbish or covered in graffiti, her practice uncovers a beauty and a wildness within these familiar but liminal spaces. The works are devoid of all human figures but traces of their activity are left behind.

For the exhibition, Juliette Losq also created a large shaped installation in the lower ground floor space with intricate painted paper, which is then rolled and torn over. The exhibition space has been transformed into a surreal beautiful and romantic place where the viewer become a protagonist within the scene, and anything could happen.

Smith’s drawings and paintings, meanwhile, depict ambiguous environments populated by strange human figures in overt pain and in suffering. Sometimes these places seem to depict lush forests or aspects of domestic interiors, such as Rococo chandeliers or wall paper patterns formed from curls, drips and washes of ink. Naked and fully clothed figures wearing historical garments emerge from whirling forms derived from memories and found images. Their character and emotional expression are informed by the artist’s reactions to images of suffering in the media. Smith’s works have a heightened feeling of movement. They seem to shift and form new patterns and figures constantly.

Complicit @ Coates & Scarry

View the full set of pics here

Complicit
Until 4 July 2015
8 Duke Street
London SW1Y 6BN

London, Street, streets

London Streets: El Seed @ Shubbak Festival

July 13, 2015 butterfly 1 Comment

For the Shubbak Festival, A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture, Cedar Lewison invited French Tunisian ‘calligraffiti’ artist eL Seed to paint his first UK commission on the wall of Village Underground in London Shoreditch.

We previously seen his work in person back in 2013 in Paris for La Tour 13 ( covered here) and more recently for Le Pont des Arts.

Blending Arabic calligraphy with graffiti techniques, eL Seed has developed a distinctive and striking style, fusing poetry and language with dramatic design to create large-scale works.

El Seed - London
View the full set of pics here

The Shubbak Festival runs until 26 July 2015

London, Street, streets

London Streets: Ana Marietta new mural

July 12, 2015 butterfly

Puerto Rican born, Houston based artist Ana Marietta is currently in London and just finished painting a new mural in Brick Lane featuring her surrealistic animal universe.

Ana Marietta - London Streets