Stavanger's Nuart Festival 2016 Post-Street Art Exhibition
Norway — Last month saw us here at Hookedblog spend a jam-packed couple of days in Stavanger where we were attending this year edition of the annual Nuart Festival(Previously on Hookedblog) now in its 16th year. The Top image is by Robert Montgomery – Nuart 2016.
This year’s Nuart Festival exhibition introduced, for the first time, the term ‘Post-Street Art’. This expression has been adopted by the festival organisers to describe artworks, artists and events that they feel are “informed by” and “aware of” the strategies, forms, and themes explored by Street Art but which couldn’t rightly be regarded as ‘Street Art’ or ‘Street Artists’ per se.
They also feel this term could also be used to describe a new breed of studio practice-based street artist, whose interest in and knowledge of the contemporary art world often far supplants that of an engagement with the street.
Views of the Tou Scene Centre for Contemporary Art, the venue for the Post-Street Art Exhibition. Also in the photo is one of the Nuart Festival Street Art buses featuring work by artist Martin Whatson (NO), part of their on-going project to establish Stavanger as the world's first ‘Art City’.
Post-Street Art Exhibition Artist
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Of the 14 invited international artists taking part in this year Nuart Festival only 10 of those created both outdoor and indoor works at Tou Scene a former beer brewery. Participating exhibition artists included Add Fuel (PT), Eron (IT), Evol (DE)(Previously on Hookedblog), Fintan Magee (AU) (Previously on Hookedblog), Henrik Uldalen (NO), Jaune (BE)(Previously on Hookedblog), Jeff Gillette (US), KennardPhillipps (UK), Nipper (NO), Robert Montgomery (UK) and SpY (ES).
As with previous years the exhibition space in the tunnels of Tou Scene is such that it allows for collaboration among some of the exhibiting artists, most if not all having never worked together prior to this show.
The first of the Tou Scene exhibition tunnels sees one such collaboration and features the works of two stencil artists Add Fuel (PT) and EVOL (DE). German Stencil artist EVOL who's work we have previously seen here in London is known for redecorating city street furniture with detailed multi-layered stencils transforming them into miniature replicas of the tower blocks where he lived in Berlin, complete with satellite dishes, tagged up walls and graffiti.
Add Fuel is a Portuguese stencil artist whose work focuses on reinterpreting the language of traditional Portuguese tile designs, in particular, the Portuguese azulejo (a painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework). For his work in Stavanger, Add Fuel looked to the traditional patterns from the region and for Nuart Festival he chose to work with traditional 'Rosemåling' patterns taken from the Rogaland region in Norway.
Another of the exhibition tunnels at Tou Scene saw Belgian stencil artist Jaune collaborate with American artist Jeff Gillette. As with Evol and Add Fuel 's work in the first room neither Jaune nor Jeff Gillette had worked together before collaborating on the Tou Scene spaces. Their room for us was one of the highlights from the Post-Street Art Exhibition.
Jaune's 3D stenciled sanitation workers hiding in among the mounds of trash that line the path to the Dismayland castle at the end of the tunnel.
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Jeff Gillette's Dismayland castle, built with assistance from Jeff wife and sculpture Laurie Hassold.
Stencil Artist Jaune enjoying a beer with artist Jeff Gillette at the opening of the Post Street Art Exhibition.
Having spent days outdoors painting what is possibly Stavanger's largest outdoor mural, Australian artist Fintan Magee somehow found the time and energy after finishing his Monument to a Disappearing Monument Mural (Previously on Hookedblog) painted across two 50m silos to create this wonderfully vibrant space within the Tou Scene tunnels for the indoor exhibition complete with dining chairs and a matching painted dining table.
Another of the rooms at the exhibition featured the work of both Kennardphillipps and Nipper. Kennardphillipps were exhibiting one of their large-scale political billboards in the front half of the room, the second half of the room featured the work of Nipper.
Nippers instalation invited the public to take his small hanging works away with them as well as encouraging them to leave their own creation behind on the tunnels wall space. Nippers space provided the public with work stations and a whole host of materials from pens, pencils, makers and coloured papers on which to create their own masterpieces. The opening of the exhibition saw the public go wild in this space with the works and doodles covering large parts of the tunnel walls.
Nippers organised room before the public went wild creating their own works.
The walls of Nipper's installation after the opening night featuring many additions from the public.
One of the exhibition rooms which you were not able to enter was that of Spanish artist SPY. His tunnel entrance was walled up from floor to ceiling with breeze blocks with a number of very small gaps in the wall that allowed viewers a glimpse of a message painted on the back wall of the tunnel. You needed to look through four holes in the wall, each giving you another piece of the text that read 'Image Not Available'.
The final tunnel space features the work of self-taught Norwegian artist Henrik Arrested Uldalen whose creative production revolves around classic figurative painting and for his tunnel we find one of his large portraits on the back wall of this darken tunnel covered with shards of broken glass.
The Nuart Festival 2016 Post-Street Art Exhibition continues at Tou Scene until the 16th October, should you not be able to make it over to Stavanger to catch the show have a look at this recap video from the Nuart Festival Post-Street Art Exhibition which Nuart have shared with us. Filmed by our friend over at FifthWallTV you can check it out below.
Exhibition Details
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'POST-STREET ART' at Tou Scene Centre for Contemporary Art.
Dates: The exhibition will run until the 16th October 2016.
Opening hours: Wed - Fri 12:00 - 17:00 / Sat - Sun 11:00 - 16:00
Location: Tou Scene Beer Halls, Kvitsøygata 25, 4014 Stavanger
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Weekly Street Art Tours will be available where the Nuart Guides will discuss the works and the artists behind them, as well as some insider and behind the scenes stories. This year they have two Street Art Tours:
Tour Option 01 — Nuart Festival 2016 Street Art Tours take you from Tou Scene in and around Storhaug and focus on the new artworks created for Nuart Festival 2016. Departing every Sunday at 14:00 from Tou Scene Beer Halls until 16th October. Their first and last tour departing 11 September* and 16 October will be in english. All other tours will be given in Norwegian
Ticket Price: 100kr, Children (under 11): free
Tour Option 02 — Stavanger Sentrum Street Art Tours take you through 15 years of Nuart Festival’s impressive Street Art history and the evolution of Stavanger into one of the world’s leading destinations for Street Art. Departing every Saturday at 14:00 from Region Stavanger Tourist Office, Domkirkeplassen 3, 4006 Stavanger.
Ticket Price: Adults: 150kr Student / Senior: 100kr Children (under 11): free Family (2 adults and 2 students/seniors): 400kr.
