On thursday September 5, Nuart Festival will be kicking off its 19th edition, bringing once again a host of international artists to the city of Stavanger in the west coast of Norway.
Running under the flag BRAND NEW, YOU’RE RETRO, the invited artist will help us make sense of the world we currently live in through the creation of public artworks. In this way, Nuart aims to challenge existing narratives, generate new ideas, and push the boundaries of what constitutes public and private space.
This year, the festival will be focusing on the evocative intersection of memory and the city, and the role of art on the streets in unravelling and reworking not only the city’s collective memories, but also the cultures. New takes on old forms, graffiti merging with street art, classicism with vandalism, the advertising of subvertising, gentrification, rights to the city and in the case of one artist, rights to life itself.
This year’s line-up includes names like 1UP (DE), Paul Harfleet (UK), Dr. D (UK), Dotmaster (UK), Edwin (UK), Jad El Khoury (LB), Jofre Oliveras (ES), Julio Anaya Cabanding (ES), OX (FR), Nuno Viegas (PT), Hyuro (AR).
One of the most interesting parts of the festival is NUART PLUS, an annual academic and industry conference where, in the days leading up to the exhibition opening, the public can take part in a multifaceted series of talks, presentations, workshops, panel debates, film screenings and more with world leading academics and industry professionals.
This year’s Nuart Plus Program runs from Thursday 5. – Sunday 8. September at Tou, centre for contemporary arts.
Nuart’s 2019 will end with their annual indoor exhibition, scheduled to open on Saturday 7. September. The exhibition gives the invited artists freedom to transform each of the seven old beer halls at Tou into their own artistic universe. This is an event you can’t miss.
Nuart Festival has also announced the Scandinavian premiere of Martha: A Picture Story, a documentary by Selina Miles in association with Stavanger Odeon Cinema
“Eighty of the happiest minutes documentary lovers are likely to spend in a theatre this year.” – The Hollywood Reporter
In 1970s New York, photographer Martha Cooper captured some of the first images of graffiti at a time when the city had declared war against it. Three decades after publishing her book, Subway Art, photographer Martha Cooper age 75, discovers she’s become an unexpected icon of one of the biggest art movements in history.
The closing party
Before there was Nuart, there was Numusic. For the 20th anniversary of what is often described as one of Scandinavia’s leading electronic music festivals, Nuart will invite you to a party filled with intriguing arctic techno from Tromsø, Norway with Mental Overdrive and DJ Ra-shidi among other artists.
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
