When surveying the current crop of street art here and in other cities around the world, we wonder where the political will has gone – the one that seemed much more confrontational and conflicted in earlier years of the modern movement. The once fiery, in-your-face spirit seems to have mellowed and become pleasant and pleasing. One theory that pops up regularly when surmising why there is a lack of conviction in street messaging, even as wars break out and the wealth gap widens everywhere you look, is that there is no such thing as anonymity as there once was. Privacy has almost completely been allowed by the citizenry to be eroded.
With a default Digital ID following your every movement and transaction, the means for someone to triangulate a particular data point are so sophisticated that if you speak out or actually challenge the status quo, you will probably be traced. Hell, any Twitter storm can produce an army of motivated detective volunteers to doxx someone who has offended social media “norms,” and we use that term loosely.
Your 13-year-old nephew Lucas can easily unearth someone’s personal details without breaking a sweat, and he doesn’t even have a laptop. 20 years ago, a graffiti or street artist could assume some modicum of anonymity, but in practice, the current crop uses the streets as a marketing extension of their Instagram account, an expression of their online personas, studiously and clearly spraying @ tags and websites on their street pieces to make sure you can find them.
So if you are pissed off at the system, you probably think twice before you put it on the streets these days unless it is a screed sprayed with a fire extinguisher that is largely untraceable – or something like that. In the case of whoever sprayed “Rishi Sunak is a Rat-Faced C*nt” on a wall, you may even inspire a punk ditty.* For many right now, activism is not even the point.
Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring David Puck, Shok1, Epic Uno, Par, Kitsune Jolene, Smug One, Trasher, V. Ballentine, Inker, P.T., King57, FUP One, and Cope Doz.
As the ‘Nice Surprise’ Street Art Festival wrapped up, Pobel’s impressive mural on Stavanger silos brought a bit of theater and activism to the fore. With a short lead time and a lot to learn, this first-time run festival was a heartfelt invitation to twelve talented artists from around the world, asking them to share their creativity from a variety of different vantage points in the street art/graffiti parlance with folks in Stavanger. It’s been a journey of unveiling and discovery, and here at BSA, it’s been our pleasure to travel alongside, capturing every mural and sharing it with you. Today, we give you a one-stop recap of all the pieces from the first ‘Nice Surprise’ festival.
We want to say thanks to Atle Østrem, Pøbel, Tore Pang, Izabell Ekeland, and Stine Oliversen for their gracious hospitality, enthusiasm, and attention to detail. We also wish to express our gratitude to Ian Cox, Tor Ståle, and Ludvig Hart for sharing their photographs with us. Thank you also to the great people we talked with on the streets and at our formal presentation at the theater. Perhaps we’ll see you next year!
Experience the synergy of history and contemporary creativity during this summer’s Nice Surprise street art festival with BSA in this Norwegian city. Join us as we celebrate Stavanger’s 900-year milestone with a new cadre of artists and programming that continues the modern heritage of this fortunate city on the North Sea with street art and graffiti.
The street art community is abuzz with anticipation for the newly sprung Nice Surprise! street art festival taking center stage in Stavanger, Norway (pop 150,000). Stavanger, as a champion for street art and graffiti, is perhaps better known for Nuart, the long-running transformative event that breathed new life into the city, attracting acclaimed artists from around the world and elevating intellectual discourse studying graffiti and street art. Now the city is giving the seal of approval to Nice Surprise to bring its own distinctive blend of artistic brilliance and community-based camaraderie to this oil capital of Scandinavia.
Nice Surprise likes to say that it is a festival organized by artists for artists. Pøbel and Atle Østrem are artists, co-founders, and part of the team. They are internationally known as pioneers and proponents of the street art scene and have been active for at least two decades. Nice Surprise is working this summer to bring some high-profile international and local artists – and some surprises – to the city from June through September.
In addition to being a meeting place for like-minded individuals passionate about street art, Stavanger is preparing to commemorate its 900-year anniversary. Nice Surprise will embrace historical neighborhoods like Pedersgata, Domkirken, and Ullandhaug to bring fresh ideas and art into these cherished locations. By merging contemporary street art with the city’s strong cultural legacy, the festival hopes to honor Stavanger’s past while sparking excitement with relevant new works that blend artistic brilliance with historical reverence, possibly provoking some introspection.
This summer BSA will be in Stavanger to bring you images and developments of Nice Surprise as an international and local roster of names come through town. Today we begin with a collaborative train piece by Sofles, Smug One, Milliana, and Norse. The train is what we believe is to be the first legal whole train to be put in regular traffic, where it will run over the entire festival period.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
