Art Basel and Wynwood Walls was a buzzing hive of artistic and cultural activity, and this year’s event at Wynwood Walls was initiated by an invite-only party featuring the iconic British DJ, Fatboy Slim, who played an hour-long set in the open courtyard. Made very famous by his hits of the early late 90s/2000s, his legendary beach parties and appearance at music festivals lock crowds in the 10s of thousands into paroxysms of dancing ecstasy.
The event also marked unveiling the 2023 artist lineup and theme – “The Power of Purpose” by Wynwood Walls’ owner and real estate businessperson Jessica Goldman Srebnick. Among the notable artist attendees included Ron English, Dan Lam, London Police, Lauren YS, Mantra, Elle, Greg Mike, Anthony Reed, Sandra Chevrier, Kai Art, Allison Heuman, Leon Keer, Shok_1, Deferk, and the much-feted artist Lauren YS, who painted an enormous mural on the WW compound depicting a surrealist vision of the scope of LGBTIQ+ community, entitled “Say Gay”. The title references Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” initiative and legislation enacted in Florida, officially known as the “Parental Rights in Education” bill. Signed into law in March 2022, this legislation prohibits classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades in public schools.
Political or not, the compound and its wide selection of artistic styles still have their own energy, now primarily the energy of the family audience and the selfie, and it is good to see many street artists still making the pilgrimage.
It’s that time of the year again! BSA has been publishing our “Hot Lists” and best-of collections for more than 10 years every December.
In this year that has been so heavy and difficult for many of the BSA family we thought it would be inappropriate to do things the way we always do, out of respect for this moment. The one list that we feel good about this year of course is our shortlist of some of our favorite books from 2020 that you may enjoy as well – just in case you would like to give them as gifts to family, friends, or even to yourself.
From BSA:
Crossroads, the new monograph from Alice Pasquini is full of the young daring and confident girls and women whom have been traveling with her since she began painting walls around the world two decades ago.
Rendered in aqua and goldenrod and midnight, withstanding winds and rains, these figures are willing to be there as a testament to the daily walk through your life. A survey and diary of her works and experiences, her style is more human than international in its everyday appeal, advocacy gently advanced through the depiction of intimate personal dynamics and internal reflection.
Perhaps this quality alludes to the invitation of interaction, the ease of integration with the public space in a way that the cultural norms of her Italian roots influenced her.
“In Rome, where I grew up, everything is urban art. Any little fountain or corner was made by an artist. And there were always a lot of expressions of freedom in this city,” she says in an interview here with writer Stephen Heyman.
Bill Posters knows his street art and activism history.
From Beuys’ practice of ‘social sculpture’ and John Fekner’s blunt upbraiding of urban planning hypocrisies to AIDS activists using street art to shame government homophobia and the paint-bombing of a Mao portrait that led to the arrest and torture of the artists/activists for counter-revolutionary propaganda, he’ll give you a solid foundation on precedence for this rebellious art life in “The Street Art Manual.”
He also knows how to yarn-bomb.
And myriad other techniques for freelance intervening in city spaces that you own, that all of us own, but which are often commandeered for commercial messages, political propaganda messages, or commercial-political propaganda messages – otherwise known as fascism.
The Street Art Manual by Bill Posters. The Street Art Manual new US on-sale date is now Sept. 8th. 2020. Published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd. London, UK. 2020.
From BSA:
Taking a decade long view of your creative life can be astoundingly instructional if you are brave enough; perusing over the body of work that you have taken with eyes focused and blurred may reveal broad outlines and finer features of a creative life-path – a psychological mapping of the inner world and its outer expression with all its impulses, longings, expressions of received truths and newly discovered wisdom.
Franco Fasoli aka JAZ has looked over his last decade (2009-2019) of work as a street artist and fine artist and offers you the opportunity to examine his public and private side as well in this new two-volume compendium. Painting on the streets since the mid-nineties and his mid-teens in his hometown of Buenos Aires, the visual artist knew his path would be a creative one. His family and role models, comprised of well-schooled artists and educators, had provided a foundation of critique and appreciation for him to build upon from the earliest years.
Belgium’s ROA, whom we have featured in perhaps 30+ articles, put out his “CODEX” monograph this spring, and while sitting inside your lockdown we thought you would enjoy freeing your mind to travel the world with him.
A gypsy by nature, a naturalist by practice, he has investigated and heralded the animal world, complete with its heartless savagery. Accurately depicting many of the most marginalized and endangered specimens, this uncanny portraitist spooks you with the scale of his animals, draws you in to their presentation without guile.
Willing to let his work do the talking, ROA is still anonymous after more than a decade on the global street art stage. Following his own path, we recognize his achievements here, and wish him good travels wherever he goes.
In addition to lush photo spreads of Martha’s documentation over 6 decades, we have essays written by art critic, curator and author Carlo McCormick, UN Executive Director Jan Sauerwald, author and photographer Nika Kramer, author, curator, and Hip Hop historian Akim Walta, National Geographic chief photo editor Susan Welchman, curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York Sean Corcoran, and the curators of this exhibition Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington.
The hefty hardcover, a richly illustrated and modernly designed book, is timed for release simultaneously with the exhibition opening this Friday, October 2. In addition to the essays, we have 40 quotes about Martha from her peers, artists, authorities in photography, folklore, graffiti, and Hip Hop, along with long-time friends and her family. The cover of the book features a photograph rarely seen of graffiti writer Skeme train surfing in NYC taken by Martha in 1982. The introductory texts to each of the 10 sections are written by author and curator Christian Omodeo.
Accessible and erudite, the catalogue unpacks the social connections, the various emerging music, art, and performance sub-scenes of “Downtown” and “Uptown” New York culture, the opaque underpinnings of the dominant culture, and the urban syntaxes that formed this young Brooklyn artist and his work in the 1970s and 1980s. To faithfully set the stage for this story; to conjure the atmosphere, the moment, the context that Basquiat evolved himself into, you would need to create an interactive urban theme park with an impossible set design budget, a cacophonous sound-music map, a handful of public policy and political advisors, an anthropologist, a warehouse of costumes, too many actors, too many attitudes, and even more drugs.
With precision and guile Sandra Chevrier has painted a female world that is sophisticated, unreachable and appealing, whether painted on canvas, street mural, or stuck to a wall in the margins of a city. The characters who are punching and pouncing and swooning across her faces are reflective of her own hearts’ adventures, seamlessly rolling and intermingling with those epic storylines and dust-ups with superheroes and villains of yesterday.
Perhaps it is because of this sense of inexactly placed nostalgia, in “Cages” we are aware of the ties that bind us, the roles that we hold – whether chosen or imposed – and we’re rooting for these Chevrierotic women to win – as they scream and cry and swing for the rafters, looking for the way out.
“A dance between triumph and defeat, freedom and captivity, the poison and the cure,” stands the ambivalent quote on the page facing her black and white photo by Jeremy Dionn.
A closeup of her face, her hand horizontally obscures the lower half, her index finger raised to allow Sandra to see, to study and assess. Without question this artists’ work is more than autobiographical – these expressions offer a stunning sense of mystery, an understanding at the precipice, an adventure-ready to occur.
With precision and guile Sandra Chevrier has painted a female world that is sophisticated, unreachable and appealing, whether painted on canvas, street mural, or stuck to a wall in the margins of a city. The characters who are punching and pouncing and swooning across her faces are reflective of her own hearts’ adventures, seamlessly rolling and intermingling with those epic storylines and dust-ups with superheroes and villains of yesterday.
Perhaps it is because of this sense of inexactly placed nostalgia, in “Cages” we are aware of the ties that bind us, the roles that we hold – whether chosen or imposed – and we’re rooting for these Chevrierotic women to win – as they scream and cry and swing for the rafters, looking for the way out.
“A dance between triumph and defeat, freedom and captivity, the poison and the cure,” stands the ambivalent quote on the page facing her black and white photo by Jeremy Dionn.
A closeup of her face, her hand horizontally obscures the lower half, her index finger raised to allow Sandra to see, to study and assess. Without question this artists’ work is more than autobiographical – these expressions offer a stunned sense of mystery, an understanding at the precipice, an adventure ready to occur.
Arranged chronologically over the last decade you can witness in her works ample evidence of her refinement of technique and reverence as an artist and as an individual; struggling between revealing and hiding, adding human dimension or remaining an object. Selected swatches of superheroes form collage masks across a steady parade of beautiful female faces and forms, their drama stirred and everpresent, lying in wait until confidence takes root.
Gorgeously designed and laid out; alternating between large matt-finished plate portraits and small sketch paper inserts, the book conveys warmth and clarity even as her superheroes remain mysterious. These cages, however they present themselves, are glossy and refined. Are they empowered, or are they objectified? The lines are blurred. Her femmes are imbued as more than just the fatale who lures one into a dangerous or compromising situation, but these figures may also revel in mystery itself, just beyond your arms reach.
Inquisitive, strong, and full of imagination, Chevrier may surprise everyone when these figures eventually take off their masks. Until then, the enchanting mysteries continue.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening : 1. Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut
2. JKS Crew in Italy & France
3. Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer
4. The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone
BSA Special Feature: Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut
We start our weekly selection with the followup release that takes hold of the narrative of the moments leading up to this month’s Banksy auction and self-destruction at Sotheby’s.
In it you hear the auctioneer chit-chatting beforehand saying things like “It’s a fun auction, you know. Everyone’s got a chance.” And by ‘everyone’ he means…everyone here in this room and on the 30 phones who are also bidding.
In other revelations this week, the Financial Times is reporting that the original artwork contained a “dedication reading ‘Thanks Jo’, which art market experts said could be a reference to Banksy’s long-time publicist, Jo Brooks.” Not so fast there Mr. Brillianteen. Perhaps Banksy is just a Jimi Hendrix fan (Hey Joe) or it was a gift to rapper Fat Joe (I’m Not a Player I Just Crush Alot) (RIP). Joe the Lion? Smokin’ Joe?
JKS Crew in Italy & France
Okay class, who wants to tell us what they did on their summer vacation?
Looks like JKS Crew were on spraycation this summer in Italy and France. The jazz bassy groove that accompanies the scenes in this video make us pine for those dreamy days of July and August already, and its only mid-October.
Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer
Who owns public space? The oligarchs, yes, but after them?
You do!
Who should paint it?
When graffiti writers and Street Artists take it over with acts of transgressive painting one may expect that the next step is probably the buff, unless you living are in an aesthetic lawlessness like Berlin, or Athens, or 2000s Detroit. It is infrequent that one may countenance the self-appointed citizen buffer, but they exist in many a neighborhood. A combination of ornery rebel and a justice-minded citizen; This is the vehement, street cleaning vigilante.
If you were writing a bespectacled urban guidebook about characters found on city streets you may advise, “Think twice before crossing this curiously civic interbreed, broken windows can be sharp.”
The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone
A Liberian surfer camp that just happens to capture the artworks of some of the biggest names in Street Art? Organizers say that its to reduce the stigma that surrounds the country that was hurt so badly by ebola a few years ago. Perhaps that what has drawn artists like Faile, Conor Harrington, 1010, Martin Whatson, Marke Jenkins, Herakut, Ted Pim, Sandra Chevrier, Ben Eine, and Seth Globepainter here to create new works here. Today we see works by Felipe Pantone, JR, and Slinkachu.
Welcome to the beginning of fall in New York, hopefully not the Fall of New York – although you can never tell when monetary policy is incredibly loose and we’re living in an “everything bubble” about to burst. Here in NYC people used to say the major industries were FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) and it is probably still true to a large extent. You could add Casinos to the acronym today because the this falsely high-flying and treacherous economy feels like a giant windowless drunken room full of sparkly lights, laughter and speculative plays. CAFIRE! Totally made that up. Might stick.
So here is our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 1312, 1UP Crew, Adele Renault, Adopt, Bailon, Ben Slow, Daze2, Dede, El Sol 25, Jonathan Allen, Marshal Arts, Mr. Joul, Nick Flatt, Nitzan Mintz, Not Pinky, Paul Punk, and Sandra Chevrier.
Now that we are closing the exhibition, how would you like to vandalize it?
Mimi Scholz . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)
That’s basically what Yasha Young said to three artists this week in Berlin.
Of course Hera from Herakut said yes, having caught a few tags in her career. So did Mimi Scholz and Sandra Chevrier, studio artists who have done some work on the street and jumped at the idea – Chevrier actually flew from Montreal just to fool around with these sexy portraits. Together, the three have made a beautifully tattooed and magic mess of all of your favorite iconic photographs by Mario Testino in this exhibition called “Undressed”.
Mimi Scholz . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)
“Because of the huge scale of my work in this show,” says Testino, “and the way it’s applied directly to the walls like wallpaper – I felt like we had no choice but to experiment with vandalizing before taking it down.” As anyone in the Street Art world can tell you, some of the best results come from unconventional experimentation.
The Helmut Newton Foundation probably wasn’t open to the idea of big fire-extinguisher tags sprayed across its walls and various sundry surfaces, but like the fluid aesthetics of the Street Art world, the 5 meter tall photos now have plenty interventions or “collaborations” that effectively transform the meanings of the original Testino images.
Mimi Scholz . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)
“We tested with pens, aerosol spray, paints, scratches, markers, paste-ups and chalk,” says curator Young, who scored the final day of this stunning photography exhibition to effectively flip the script. “The three artists managed to change the original intention and subject into entirely new stories and perspectives. With texts and poetry, some sharp wit, and incredible talent – this show is mind blowing.”
Somehow it makes perfect sense for this boundary-pushing photographer to let his work be pushed further by three artists who have been pushing the imposed/accepted limits of street culture for the last decade or more, each willing to provoke when necessary.
Hera . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)
Scholz routinely pokes fun at all the cliches of female psyche, while Chevrier points at the superficiality of image forced upon girls and women, and Hera’s critiques of all manner of hypocrisy softly lacerates with the phrasing of a poet. All three are ready to play with sexuality and emotion, a perfect combination with the world summoned by this starkly sensual show, which Helmut Newton Foundation curator Matthias Harder describes as “filling the rooms with bodies and emotions in a sensational way.”
In case you’re wondering, all art work will be destroyed after the close of the exhibition, say the organizers; a perfect parallel to the ephemeral nature of art on the street.
Our thanks to Ms. Young for these exclusive photos of Sunday’s show just for BSA readers.
Sandra Chevrier . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)
Sandra Chevrier . Mario Testino “Undressed” Helmut Newton Foundation. Berlin. One Day Only Street Art Intervention curated by @strychninberlin. (photo courtesy @strychninberlin)
HELMUT NEWTON FOUNDATION
Museum of Photography
Jebensstrasse 2 / 10623 Berlin
info@helmut-newton-foundation.org
www.helmut-newton.com
phone +49 30 3186 4856
For more information about the ONE DAY ONLY event click HERE
For more information about the Helmut Newton Foundation click HERE
Blek Le Rat arrived at the Urban Nation office today with his wife Sybille after a long car ride from Paris, ready for a coffee and possibly to take a look at the wall he’ll be painting here to celebrate “UNSTOPPABLE”, the inaugural exhibition of the UN museum this weekend. The wind taunted BustArt as he attempted to lay his irreverent stencil of Mother Mary coddling Pluto Jr. and the sliced cutout cardboard bent and bowed beyond an average person’s patience while his buddy Stephan helped hold it down for spraying.
Under the elevated train a legion of police and traffic cops removed 80 or so cars so the team could begin building stages, cages, platforms, lighting, electricity – for a slew of fresh outdoor pieces which will be installed Thursday and Friday for the weekend outside component.
Who is going to be on display as part of the Art Mile? Try Pixel Pancho, Franco JAZ Fasoli, Bordalo II, Mimi S., HowNosm, Zezao, Isaac Cordal, Olek, Seth Globepainter, Blek Le Rat, Hottea, Dot Dot Dot, Borondo, Herakut, Deih XLF, Faith 47, David De La Mano, Nespoon, Tank Patrol, Lister, Cranio, Sandra Chevrier, Aaron Woes M, Yok & Sheryo, Haroshi, Don John, Ben Frost, Various & Gould, Icy & Sot, Mademoiselle Maurice, the Juxtapoz newsstand, Mark Bode, Shepard Fairey, 1 Up, James Bullough, and 2501. It’s a real cross section of styles, influences, and voice that will be engaging guests this weekend.
The Berlin police actually use a truss and truck that picks up the offending car, puts it on a flatbed. Then, believe or not, they look for an empty parking spot in the neighborhood an place the car into the new place – also signs are posted to let you know where your car was re-located to.
In New York City if you are unfortunate enough to park your car in the wrong place it is simply towed away to a massive car yard somewhere, banging into things occasionally on the way and flying through potholes – and then held for a King’s ransom. Then you have to simply guess if it was towed or stolen. No word on what the London Police do in regards to cars parked illegally.
Up on a lift for painting today also were Mademoiselle Maurice, David De La Mano, and James Bullough, and the company plastering the corner façade of the museum with pink letters. When the winds got to strong everybody was forced to bring the lifts down for an hour. Intrepid and lucky photographers like Jaime Rojo and Nika Kramer still managed to go up in the buckets to get some good shots in.
Hot Tea is spraying a big installation space with a rainbow of colors – on the walls and floors completely. People who are peeking through the plastic sheeting that protects the windows are wondering what this world of color is going to be.
Meanwhile the onslaught of arrivals continues, including hopefully we’ll see Martha Cooper and Carlo McCormick. Martha of course will be here to celebrate the beginning of the Martha Cooper Library within the museum and Carlo will be here to see the didactics and texts he wrote for the exhibition and catalogue –as well as speaking at the Unlock Book Fair. This publishing fair for graffiti, street art and related practices is a must see for those who relish the independent thinking minds who publish on paper in this scene. Other great speakers featured will be Pedro Soares, Jens Besser, Susan Phillips, Thomas Chambers, and Javier Abarca.
Okay that’s your update for today. See you on the streets tomorrow.
Stavanger, Norway may not have throbbing Street Art scene per se, but it does have a lot of cool murals (thanks to Nuart festival) and a few favorite artists who reliably please the crowds (thanks to Nuart Gallery). This week opened a dynamic duo of the contemporary pop art side of the spectrum working in tandem with complimentary styles for a new show called “Junction” in the gallery space.
The line outside stretched down the cobblestoned adorable block and around the adorable cobblestoned corner! Montreals based Sandra Chevrier has been quickly garnering attention since debuting at Reed Projects in 2013 with her masked beauties and Norwegian stencillist Martin Whatson has been touching on the vernacular of pop Street Art and hand-tagged abstractions in a way that has developed into his own style over these past few years. The collaboration is an easy reach for both and the resulting ironic/arresting images that only this mashup can produce.
Here are a few images from the new mural they collaborated on to celebrate Thursday’s opening – the show runs through the 28th of July.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. 3 Minutes in Brooklyn
2. NUART at 15 on 2015
3. Vegan Flava: Arms Factory in Lisbon
4. FAILE: “Wishing On You” Times Square 2015 NYC
5. Sandra Chevrier. The Aftenblad Wall
6. Winter is Coming, All My Single Ladies
BSA Special Feature: 3 Minutes in Brooklyn
Bruno Maltor at Votre Tour Du Monde recently came to Brooklyn and made a short video of his experiences here. It’s a huge borough (2.6 million inhabitants) and he got just a little taste but he did manage to hit DUMBO, Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, downtown, the Botanical Gardens, the Brooklyn Museum, caught some performers on the subway, and Damien Mitchell painting a mural. Ah Brooklyn, you heart breaker, you love maker, you land of a million dreams and possibilities.
NUART at 15 on 2015
A splendid melange of words and images from this years Nuart festival in Norway, its 15th.
Vegan Flava: Arms Factory in Lisbon
“The roof and walls of every factory will molder away by rain and wind.” Vegan Flava discovers a former arms factory in Lisbon and does a tribute to pain and suffering of the people who were killed by its’ industry.
FAILE: “Wishing On You” Times Square 2015 NYC
We debuted this video by Priest Fontaine live for the Brooklyn Museum audience with Faile and actual chills went up people’s spines. No lie. Now you can see it too here online Capturing the current Times Square as county fair with mountains of screens flashing images around the Selfie Stick Forest, all corporate creepy and still sleezey – Fontaine evokes the magic that Faile is, as well as the pure industry that it takes to make their art work. Also good to remember that it was a hot and humid overnight installation that started at 8pm and ended around 10 the following morning.
Thanks to everyone who came out to talk to us and listen to a conversation we had with FAILE on the stage of the Brooklyn Museum – where everybody learned facts that are fundamental to understanding this dynamic duo; Where the name came from, why they write “1986” on everything, and what role religion plays in their work, among other things. More on this Tuesday.
In other news, Pope Francis brought the city to a standstill – especially in Manhattan where he hit the United Nations, Central Park, and held a mass at Madison Square garden with his messages about immigration, greed, climate change, and the burgeoning wars that heads of state (there were 170 in town) appear powerless to prevent and woefully inadequate at protecting the people from. Throngs of faithful and long security lines greeted him all over the city. There was some Street Art here and there to mark the occasion, and we will continue to keep our eyes open for it now that he has gone to Philadelphia to hold an enormous mass on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum.
Also, tonight is the Blood Moon! Not sure what that means but the name is sort of scary. If we all die in an apocalypse remember we love you. If not, same.
And all the while these two French guys were dragging their furniture down Broadway from 125th Street on a city-wide tour…. Full story tomorrow on BSA.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 2501, City Kitty, Fanakapan, Jose Parla, JR, Mark Samsonovich, Mosher Show, Punk Me Tender, Renauld & Boijeot, Rubin415, Sandra Chevrier, Shin Shin, Stikman, and Wing.
A roundup today for the Nuart street art/ mural festival in Norway with images of the final walls by this years artists. Now celebrating its 15th year, the mid-sized fjord-facing city of Stavanger has played host to a selection of international and local artists directly or indirectly related to the evolving scene we know as Street Art.
Again this year the selection of invited participants is varied, potent, and occasionally a smack upside the head – with punk rock graphic designer Jamie Reid leading the way in spirit and on walls. Reid’s inspiration dates to the radical hippie politics and Situationist practices of the 1950s and 60s but he is best known for formation of the Sex Pistols anti-monarchial slash and burn visual identity and for penning their pivotal recording “Anarchy in the UK” – a history discussed in Carlo McCormick’s presentation during the Nuart Plus program.
In tandem with his paste-ups around town and installation at the formal gallery show was the lesser-known street photography of very-well-known graffiti photographer and ethnographer Martha Cooper, who displayed a selection of five decades of children playing on the streets with improvised toys and games – via an automated slide show – as well as an additional one she narrated during our panel on this year’s theme “Play” at Nuart Plus.
While neither Reid nor Cooper are thought of as Street Artists per se, their choice as participants gave grounding to the proceedings and is emblematic of director Martyn Reed’s holistic approach to an eclectic programming that mixes up the tributaries and the river in such a way that observers may better have tools to measure the creative flow that we are all witnessing on city walls across the globe today.
As we mark the halfway point of this decade and see the institutional discussions of Street Art taking form while academics try to place it in the canon of art-making and decide upon the nature of its impact, they do it with the knowledge that gallery shows, museum exhibitions, high-profile auctions, individual collecting, lifestyle marketers, and public festivals of many configurations and aspirations are already embracing its relevance. No one can possibly gauge this story in all of its complexity but some will capture its spirit. Being on the street helps.
One way to get a pulse on the present is to attend shows like Nuart and witness the diverse stratagems that artists are using to engage their audiences and judge if they are successful at realizing their intentions. With a deliberately mixed bag of thinkers, feelers, documentors, aesthetes, and pranksters culled together for your edification, this show stokes the discussions.
Others may say that the headliners of this year’s Nuart were the French couple Ella & Pitr, whose record-setting 21,000 square meter mural of a young woman in running shorts lying in a semi-fetal position could only be viewed by helicopter across the roofs of a large construction company complex.
You could say that Stavanger streets were commanded with greater effect by the simple addition of Spain’s Isaac Cordal and his handmade concrete (or resin) bald businessmen, fifty or so of which he glued into crevices and upon ledges and structural fissures on buildings throughout town. Their sad existential conundrums are ours, even though we are guilting them with all the corrupt actions we are at least a little complicit in.
Arguably the greatest metamorphosis took place with the collection and assembly of local detritus – broken car pieces, old bicycles, tires, even ship buoys. Before you roll your eyes and think of homey craft-inspired planters on front lawns, the likenesses of animals that Bordalo II can evoke with his sculptures is uncanny and a little spooky.
His “stag” deer is meant as a commentary on the loss of natural habitat of the animals at the hands of what we call “development”. The companion piece of a whale overwhelmed by environmental poisoning in the Tou Scene gallery installation proves equally compelling and tragic.
Harmen de Hoop invited a top economist to perform his installation purely with chalk and a 30-minute lecture on the streets of Stavanger on the subject of option pricing, Dolk bravely experimented with a new abstractionist, reductivist approach that ran counter to the style he is known for, and brothers Icy & Sot were the most currently topical with their portrait of a girl whose distorted visage is that of a refugee boat crammed with people. If Nuart at times feels like a laboratory it may be the perfect analogy for the street experience in cities everywhere.
Have a look at many of the finished walls at Nuart this year. See our essay marking their 15th anniversary HERE.
After Stavanger Mayor Christine Sagen Helgø made the official declaration of the opening of the Nuart gallery show at Tou Scene last night the sliding barn door on the ex beer factory moved back to allow the crowd to flow in like a river to see this years collection of art installations in the “tunnels” of the space. This component of the Nuart experience allows a certain degree of curation and idea development that brings you a fuller appreciation of the artists who create murals on the street as well.
Additionally, and we are telling you nothing secret here, the adhoc crew of technicians and scene creators here are rough and ready; obviously over qualified and with a fair degree of refinement when it comes to helping the artist realize some of their grander aspirations. Artists are encouraged to think big and a number of them have this year, including some who are so capacious they nearly collide or eclipse one another, but visitors this year may feel like the quality and depth of this editions 5-week show just advanced by a length.
This week’s interview with the street is not actually on the street – but rather a reflection of the direction that the street can take a curated collection of current artists and corollary influencers from years past.
Clearly you can go as deeply or shallowly as you want with this years theme of “Play”. Harmen de Hoop’s video of Thursday’s performance piece on Stavanger’s streets by a renowned mathematics and statistics professor Jan Ubøe, who mystifies the assembled audience while explaining the factors that form our world economy is rather utterly balanced on a jerking seesaw with Bortusk Leer’s incessantly cheery monster diorama.
50 years of selected photographs by ethnographer Martha Cooper of children in cities around the world at play with improvised tools and methods are almost matched in impact by Ernest Zacharevic’s slowly tumultous sea waters tossing a child’s paper boat with a handful of kids inside, evoking the current news with immigrants escaping to Europe in dangerous waters. Isaac Cordal’s installation of achingly desperate white-collar men in a desperate diorama is uplifted by Ella & Pitr’s fairy tale giant reaching from the heavens to pick one from a chair.
Sandra Chevrier brings a signature masking of a woman’s visual and olefactory senses, quite alone in the bright spotlight. The iconic ripped shreds and piled irony of Jamie Reid brings the radicalized hippie and punk politics into front and center while Pixel Pancho and Bordalo II each take swipes at the oil economy that dominates our lives while killing others.
Bordalo alone could command the entire space with his found/reclaimed Stavanger refuse that is fashioned into a immensely tragic scene of a spent whale submerged in muck and spouting that black gooey pulp from it’s blow-hole. Icy & Sot next door use their understated humor and biting criticism with a summer tree in a verdant hue captured as soliloquey, first appearing leafy and fluttering from a fan-stirred breeze, then revealed as suffocated by 300 petroleum-based green plastic shopping bags that are caught in its branches.
Finally the painterly abstractions of Futura across half a tunnel are set free, poignantly balancing the symbolic liberty of Martin Whatson’s graffitied butterfly, now cravenly pierced and readied for your private collection.
While you can practically smell the brands hovering over quality events like these to hopefully insinuate themselves into – Nuart continues to keep its independence of curation, broadening its branches with the Tou Scene installations and deepening its roots with academic forums and related programming in such a way that its true nature remains. Hopefully it will be to continue this way despite a tightening Norwegian economy.
Yes there was some talk at panels this week about the fact that a 15 year old Street Art mural festival is in itself an institution and anathema to what the graffiti/street/urban art practice may have originated from, but one of the myriad outcomes of pounding away with purpose at thoughtful parallel programming like this Tou Scene show year after year is that you may also develop something uniquely relevant in its own right.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street – this week via the exhibition space of Nuart 2015 and featuring Bordalo II, Bortusk Leer, Dolk, Dot Dot Dot, Ella & Pitr, Ernest Zacharevic, Furtura, Harmen de Hoop, Icy & Sot, Isaac Cordal, Jamie Reed, Martha Cooper, Outings Project, Pixel Pancho, and Sandra Chevrier.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
\
