Monday, 30 March 2009
Zeus (UK)
For the past 20 years, London artist Zeus has been drawing inspiration from urban culture to create dynamic, experimental compositions that have re-defined graffiti art. Captivated by the hip-hop scene of the 80s, he began expressing his creative talents on the street when he was just 14, using walls, trains, and open spaces as his galleries.
Since then Zeus has continually pushed the boundaries of graffiti artistry, taking the form out of its traditional setting and into new, exciting and more legitimate places. His latest works represents an innovative fusion of graffiti techniques and typography, fine art and sculpture and reflect both his background on the streets and his formal training at Chelsea College of Art.
Born Dean Zeus Colman, his middle name naturally became his tag. It could be seen across London throughout the 80s and, still in his teens, Zeus earned a reputation as one of they country’s most prolific writers. His work caught the attention of many of the influential faces of hip-hop at the time, figures like Tim Westwood who commissioned him to create designs for one of the first hip-hop clubs, Spatz, in 1984. Through Westwood, Zeus also had the opportunity to work with the likes of Paul Oakenfold, making backdrops and posters for artists signed to his Def Jam label, including Dougie Fresh and Whizz Kid. Meanwhile, Doze of the Rock Steady Crew helped him perfect his spray paint techniques.
When house music took off in 1986/87 Zeus also received commissions from the warehouse clubs that sprung up around the capital, such as West World at the Brixton Academy. All these contacts served as an effective catalyst for his career, encouraging him to think beyond the limitations of spray paint and walls. Zeus has always striven to rid street art of its tarnished image - acquired through an historic association with crime and vandalism. Partly to this end, he has worked with numerous community centres throughout London, teaching young offenders graffiti techniques. In so doing, he has helped to establish the art form as an effective, positive outlet for the energies and creativity of teenagers. He was even invited to teach Prince Charles how to spray paint as part of a Prince’s Trust initiative.
It was also due to common perceptions of his chosen art form that Zeus returned to college. He was aware of the conflict that pervaded the UK art scene - and which to an extent still does - between being recognised as a street artist and gaining recognition as an artist per se. He secured a place at Chelsea College of Art to study for a degree in Fine Art, majoring in sculpture, making it harder for sceptics to question his talent and abilities.
It was at this point that Zeus took his art into three-dimensional form, creating graffiti sculptures out of light wooden sheets. Over the next decade interest in this artist intensified. He was described as “a 3D graffiti pioneer” by ‘The Face’ magazine and his work appeared at a variety of venues throughout the UK, including London’s Victoria & Albert museum as part of its ‘StreetStyle’ exhibition. His latest solo show took place in March 2003 at Westbourne Studios in Notting Hill. ‘Graffiti Landscapes’ was an eclectic mix of paintings and sculptures combining fine art and street art and attracted significant attention from London’s artistic community and the international media. In the same year, Zeus was commissioned by Jade Jagger to re-design the windows and display cabinets for Garrards (the Crown jewellers) to promote her Graffiti range. His latest artwork was also displayed at Garrards for a private party hosted by Jagger for London Fashion Week. Since then Zeus has received numerous offers to exhibit his work. In April 2003 he joined a group of self-taught artists from around the world to showcase some of his creations at London’s Inspired Art Fair. Dan Macmillan also invited him to participate in his Zoltar Show last December.
Zeus has maintained momentum as an artist through his desire to recreate the essence of street art in original guises. At the present time he is channelling his talents into the creation of useable sculptures, from his enowned ‘Fishtank’ to 3D graffiti furniture. He aims to make the art form visually more understandable and in so doing communicate its beauty and validity beyond the confines of the street. Already he has made great headway towards this goal, opening the form up to a broader audience and earning himself wide recognition in the process.
NUART 06 : VIRTUAL GUESTS
BEK
BEK, Bergen Center for Electronic Arts, is a non-profit organization situated in Bergen, Norway, providing resources and knowledge for artists and others working in the field of arts and new technology..
I-DAT
i-DAT is a creative playground for trans-disciplinary practice at the interface between art, technology and science. i-DAT aims to define and establish new fields of practice and critical discourse in the context of emergent technologies and cultural forms, new scientific paradigms, and new media art - telematic, interactive, generative, architectural, technoetic, performative, sonic, transgenic, transmedia.
The Institute for Applied Autonomy
The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA) was founded in 1998 as a technological research and development organization dedicated to the cause of individual and collective self-determination. Our mission is to study the forces and structures which affect self-determination and to provide technologies which extend the autonomy of human activists..
Jimmy Cauty (UK)
At first glance this “Adidas” billboard might appear to be simply a giant advert for Nike. But why would anybody want to do that? Especially at a street art festival in Norway.
However, on closer inspection my signature can be seen in the bottom right hand corner, thus transforming them into works of extreme copyright infringement and anti anti anti branding.
When I was first approached about doing something for the Nuart festival by Leon, he mentioned the oil company connections with Stavanger and suggested I tackle the subject of oil. However, a quick trawl through google images revealed hundreds of anti oil photoshop images…. Shell, Esso etc. Its all been done; Everyone knows the big corporations are the bad guys, they don’t need me or a bunch of vandals stating the bloody obvious. It's too easy these days to just go on the attack, juxtapose a couple of images and come up with something vaguely subversive. The trouble is, it's so prevalent now that its become commonplace.
My thinking is that we need to head ‘em off at the pass. Use the logo in its purest form. Any corporation will be totally baffled by this approach.
Nike are a global brand and their logo is more famous than Jesus or the Beatles. I've hijacked their logo and, after careful consideration, decided to make no change, to add no additional elements, to not turn it upside down or have blood dripping off the end, or make any political comment about the brand... In short I’m letting the brand shout out its own warped message to the world.
The entire planet is one huge advertising hoarding. The visual impact on all our lives is
overwhelming and total. Culture jamming, graffiti, street art and fiddling around with billboards won’t solve the problem of this mass visual vandalism by global brands. Perhaps a new approach is needed?
The misappropriation of branded logos works. The National Front in the UK appropriated the union flag and rendered it unusable for a decade. Maybe, by associating the Nike logo with low level vandalism, it too could be rendered useless.
Although it’s blatant copyright infringement to use the Nike logo without permission, no attempt has been made to bring the company into disrepute or portray them as third world slave drivers. I'm not passing myself off as a rival sports wear manufacturer, or making any political point. I’m just reflecting their image back. What are they going to do? Demand they're taken down? Why? Is there something wrong with Nike billboards? Or is there something wrong with these particular versions?
It’s more than possible that Nike wont even notice this small invasion of their territory, and, even more probable that the people of Stavanger wont notice there's something wrong with these billboards. It does upset the street art apple cart though, but maybe that's not a bad thing. The relationship between advertising and subvertising has become so safe. No one is saying anything interesting or new. It has become complicit and part of a comforting visual noise.
These super reflective images do challenge and question the very notion of anti advertising art. People may pause and reflect... or just drive by to the nearest shoe emporium.
James Cauty UK Artist, August 2008
Graffiti Research Lab (US)
GRL is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists, pranksters and protesters with open source tools for urban communication. The goal of the G.R.L. is to technologically empower individuals to creatively alter their surroundings on the scale of advertisers, corporations and the state in order to reclaim public spaces from both authoritarian and consumer culture. GRL Weapons of Mass Defacement (WMDs) are the result of numerous grants, awards and commissions from rogue governments, educational institutes and arts organizations, including an Award of Distinction from Ars Electronica in 2006. They have shown their work in the streets on five continents and have been featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Tate Modern in London and toilet stalls all over the world. Their first documentary film, GRL: The Complete First Season, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and sold-out the MoMA.
They have been featured in or contributed to publications, books and other mass media, like the New York Times, Time Magazine, Time Asia, The Taipei Times, Excelsior, Time Out New York, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Wired, Il Corriere Della Sera, El Pais, Street Renegades, The Tate's Street Art, NBC, ABC, CNN, MTV, BBC, CNET, Boingboing.net, Digg.com and on the front page of Youtube. But, more importantly, thousands of ubiquitous, clandestine agents have trained themselves, via the web, to use GRL tools and techniques to create their own public interventions all over the world. Graffiti Research Lab splinter cells have formed in Amsterdam, Vienna, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Yokohama, Tijuana, Hong Kong, Taipei, Minneapolis, Australia and London. Graffiti Research Lab NYC is honored to be New York's representative to the U.S. Department of Homeland Graffiti. The GRL is a Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) production headquartered in the County of Kings, Brooklyn, NY.
We are the GRL and we approve of this message.
Chris Stain (US)
Born 1972 in Baltimore MD
Got into graffiti at age 11
Started cuttin stencils in '98
Work generally focuses on innercity and working class themes purpose of work is to recognize the often overlooked individuals in society.
Wordtomother (UK)
Wordtomother is an English born artist with a background in graffiti and illustration. If you've not yet wised up to Wordtomother's beautiful pen, pencil and paint skills, then it's high time you did. Inspired by social observation and nostalgic advertising, his relentless sketch book doodling has yielded some of the most inspiring drawings and paintings we've seen. He has recently exhibited at the Stolen Space gallery where his first solo show "Dead Trees, Yellow Leaves, Cups of Tea" sold out. He is currently working on a new range of screen prints and work to be exhibited on a wall near you soon....
Tristian Manco (UK)
A latter day Henry Chalfant who's been at the heart of this "scene" for longer than most. Passionate and curious about all things graffiti. Tristan will be programming a series of events and talks at this years Nuart.
Tristan Manco will be chairing debates, introducing films and devising a programme of events to be spread over Nuarts opening weekend.
Tristan is a freelance designer and art director, based in Bristol, UK. Over the last fifteen years, originally inspired by Parisian stencil graffiti, he has been documenting walls worldwide.
Part responsible for, not only Banksy's rise to fame, but for the street art scene in general. His book Stencil Graffiti, started in 1999 and published in 2002 was an obvious labour of love, a book that went on to inspire thousands. Tristan followed this up with "Street Logos" published in 2005. A book that documented and presented the development of a new graphic savvy Vandal.
Subverted signs, spontaneous drawings, powerful symbols and curious characters representing an unstoppable worldwide outdoor gallery of free art were all discussed, presented and dissected in full. Street Logos is an international celebration of these developments in 21st-century graffiti, an essential sourcebook for all art and design professionals and a delight to everyone excited by the vitality of the street.
Tristan was also editor of Nick Ganz's incredible book, Graffiti World.GRAFFITI WORLD is the ultimate graffiti book offering a unique insight into the very essence of graffiti and its creative explosion in almost every corner of the globe. It has become a staple reference source for anyone interested in this global phenomenon.
Tristan's most recent publication is Graffiti Brasil, a first hand survey of some of the most original work to emerge from the scene in the past decade. For a taste of the what this work looks like anmd some of the events tied to the book, go here. The book looks like doing for South American graffiti art, what Stencil Graffiti did for the stencil.
"Street art is both an expression of our culture and a counterculture in itself. ‘Communication’ has become a modern mantra: the city streets shout with billboards, fly posters and corporate advertising, all vying for our attention. They almost invite a subversive response. As high-tech communications have increased, a low-tech reaction has been the recent explosion in street art."
Tristan was recently interviewed for a great new book "Street Art Stockholm".. below is the introduction text. Click here for full interview and for details on how to buy the book.
How did you become interested in Street Art?
My interest in graffiti began with what I saw as a kid growing up in the UK. I am a sixties child so I remember the basic stuff you used to see in the 70s; kids names, the names of football teams and general abuse - this was before the New York style arrived in the 80s. So like anyone from my generation I have seen a lot of changes and some of our first experiences were often through books.
Of course the Spraycan Art and Subway art books are well known, I had them when they first appeared but around the same time a book came out about street art. The book was called ‘Paris Graffiti’ published in 1985 (Thames and Hudson), it documented (mostly without text) the huge stencil craze started there by people like Blek le Rat, who I later got to interview for my own book. I was so struck by these images and myself and school friend started making stencils ourselves. I carried on making them through art college in Wolverhampton but there was never a huge scene in the UK at the time and it was only when I travelled to places like Lisbon and Amsterdam did I see bigger European picture of stencil graffiti.
I think because Street Art was not documented as much as the New York style of graffiti during the 80s it became a forgotten history that is slowly coming to light now. For example for Spraycan Art the authors had lots of pictures of Street Art such as the work of Keith Haring but they didn’t fit into the larger graffiti scene so they didn’t use them. So with my first book, “Stencil Graffiti” I wanted to connect the stencil art I had seen when I was young to the new Street Art I was seeing towards the end of the 90s. I live in Bristol, the same city as Banksy. It was his stencils that began to spring up around the city in 97 that inspired me to make my book and connect his work to the history of stencils and the global scene.
Slinkachu (UK)
A mysterious art project called "little people", which consists of tiny hand painted people left on the streets of London in various scenarios then left to fend for themselves. We discovered Slinkachu one day whilst trawling the net and thought WTF !?!..what a great idea, one of those.. wow, I wish I thought of that, then I wish I had the patience and skills necessary to go do it.
Below is an interview between Slinkachu & lab mimisis
Why did you decide to work in “public space” and what does “public” mean to you?
Public spaces allow freedom to do what I want, within reason. Anyone can utilise public spaces to create art, whereas not everyone can get in to a gallery to display their work. Also the message and its context differs – finding art unexpectedly in a public space can be a surprise and the art can talk differently to its audience (and often to a different audience) that way.
"In your opinion, what explains the increased tendency over the last thirty years, to work in public contexts? What are your needs when you work in this context?
I think a desire for an artist’s work to be seen by a wide audience that doesn’t rely on the confines of a gallery, or the art establishment. I think that there is a desire to create art in almost everyone too – creating art in public is often easy and allows spontaneity.
Public spaces are just that; Public. And they offer anyone chances to anyone to create art. Personally, my work comments on its environment and the issues associated with that environment. Often people won’t see my installations because they are so small, but that in itself is part of the fun of using a public space. I love the idea that people will look out for my work but never find it, or stubble upon it and wonder why on earth it is there. I also love the textures and shapes that public areas offer and use these in my photographs.
In your opinion, which are the connotations of the relation between the artist who decides to act into public space and the public space itself? What is your experience about it?
For my work, which is pretty ephemeral, I find it cathartic that I can leave behind work that will most probably get destroyed under foot or by a road sweeper. I think that there is a sense of danger and excitement about producing unauthorised art in public too that must turn a lot of graffiti and street artists on.
How important is camouflage in your work? How important is the dialectic between visible and invisible in your work’s strategies in the public context?
For me, camouflage is important as I want my work to be hard to find. I think the themes of being invisible in a big city are interesting too and something that a lot of street artists are interested in. My work lives on on the net though so I know it won’t go completely unseen, just seen in a different context.
How important is the spectator in the realization of your public projects? What do you want to communicate with your work?
The spectator is important, but the way my pieces work on the net too means that I am almost considering two different spectators when I make a piece and photograph it. People have seen my work online and recognised the area it was placed and gone out to take or look at the little people there. I love that kind of interaction. But I also like to imagine that unsuspecting people stumble across my pieces sometimes and think “What the fuck!?!” I guess I want to surprise people, get them to look around themselves a bit more and reconsider the city. I want to add back a small sense of wonder that I think people loose as they get older.
http://little-people.blogspot.com/
Sixten (SV)
Sixten did his first stencil in 1994 on a skateboard deck, but it wasn't until 2000 that he started placing his stencils on the streets.A primary force in Australia's burgeoning street art scene for many years, Sixten co-authored the book, "Melbourne, Street Graffiti Capital", the first book to explore the city's thought provoking, visually rich stencil graffiti scene and the politics that it is largely centered around. Stencil graffiti found its heart in Melbourne, Australia. Few other cities can boast such quantity and quality of stencil art, Sixten being one of the primary motors that drove this incredible scene.
Sixten has recently relocated back to Sweden, his original home. He has exhibited in New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Hong Kong, Melbourne and LA and has worked alongside such luminaries as Logan Hicks.
he hopes to try to coax a reaction out of the viewer with his art, his messages range from blatant popoganda to the more subtle, but in the main his inspiration is drawn from extreme feelings of passion, angst, euphoria and rage, his stencils aim to both provoke and amuse. Sixten is also one of the forces behind Stencil Revolution, the largest online site devoted to street art. Books that display his works are Stencil Pirates by Josh McPhee, Conform by Saskia Folk and Schablone Berlin by Caroline Koebel & Kyle Schlesinger.
He is also featured in the film Rash, which documents the street art scene of Melbourne, Australia. The film received an award as Best Feature Documentary by The Film Critics Circle of Australia, 2005.
Renè Gagnon (US)
We like artists with artists statements. Usually we're too honest for our own good and come across as a bunch of melancholic outsiders writing personal manifestos about "why the hell we do this". So when someone does this for us, we can put our feet up, pack away our thesaurus, cut n paste the text and have a cup of tea..His short artist statement is kinda cool too "I make shit that looks cool." and is the reason we invited him, we'd also urge you check out his website for a more serious look at the motivations and personality behind the work.
"I've always been considered a creative individual, but my first real devotion to the arts revealed itself during the mid-eighties when my thirst for creation exploded after seeing graffiti art emanate from the streets of New York City. The enormity of the works and the care free expression of color displayed a means by which I could gain the attention that every teen is so desperately seeking. This rebellious idea of searching for your identity through the use of markers and spray paint fueled my desire to follow in the footsteps of a graffiti artist. Twenty years later, I find myself back where I began.
For years, being conscious of others opinions and marketability, I thought I had to change myself and the way I painted. Most individuals I encountered despised everything graffiti art represented; criminal behavior, destruction of property, etc.. With fear of this stereotype I began to create works that did not express my true self.
Now, I find myself at a point in life where I am beginning to see through the spray paint haze. I now realize that an artist's work should represent their soul. So, through the use of urban media techniques mastered as a teenager, I am attempting to bridge the gap between graffiti art and contemporary abstract expressionism.
In almost every city, evidence of graffiti in the form of tags, throw-ups, and burners can be found. At times, graffiti artists' will battle with each other for visibility on the same surfaces. Over time, the multiple transformations of these surfaces reveal an abstract maze of color and composition that I see as an opportunity. The opportunity to create something much greater than what meets the eye.
My vision is to recreate the battle between graffiti artists' with my art. By taking a personal journey into my thoughts, beliefs, influences, memories and my views on life, I am able to fuel my subsequent attack on the canvas. As feelings are evoked from the written words a physical manifestation builds to a point of overflow. Ultimately unleashing itself in a furor of uninhibited energy, where time and place become nonexistent. It is in this vitality that my artistic soul reveals itself and dances its way into a flurry of whirling paint and exploding spray paint cans."
www.renegagnonfineart.com/
Pøbel (NO)
Currently causing controversy in Norway for tagging a whale, a problem that David Attenborough doesn't seem to have. But then again, David doesn't do Stencils.
As you can see from the above photo, Pøbel has been having a whale of a time recently, it's not only animal welfare people that are tagging animals these days.
Renowned for both his huge stencils on the side of remote barns and abandoned houses in the north of Norway as well as his smaller intricate multi layered pieces. Pøbel speaks with a unique national voice, maybe that's just because I'm looking at the whale, or maybe due to fact that he's been isolated way up north for sometime.
There's a lot to be said for a ceratin amount of isolation from the level of hype and interest that's currently sweeping through "street art". At times it seems like everyman and his dog is having a crack at making stencils, more often than not, this is usually centered around capital cities or cities that have already made a name for themselves as Street Art friendly. The type of work it generates is in the main, small rushed pieces that emulate works seen in lifestyle magazines and books.
The isolation that Norway affords, and certainly you don't get much more isolated than Pøbel (*he lives in the north pole), allows a certain amount of time to reflect more on what you're going to produce and where, it also offers an amount of space to work that's unrivalled by major cities. This of course means that the audience for the work and the context of pieces, have to be more carefully considered. All of these issues, the scale, the placement, the thought processes, the concept, the poilitics, the consideration of audience and the execution of the final piece are handled by Pøbel in an absolutely unique fashion. He brings a sense of the ridiculous to his work which in turn reflects a deeper concern with his and our current realities.
Nick Walker (UK)
This elevated Nick from ‘Vandal’ (a recurring theme in his work to date) to Artist and created opportunities for him to paint the film sets of movies ranging from Judge Dredd to Hackers, B-Monkey and Stanley Kubrick's, Eyes Wide Shut. It was during this brief move away from street work that he shed his infamous EGO tag and re-emerged as Nick Walker the Apish Angel.
As a forerunner to Banksy and the now mainstream British stencil/graffiti phenomenon, he has always been a pioneer of his field. Constantly evolving and pushing the boundaries of traditional graffiti by combining intricate stencil images with his conventional freehand methods, his work has always been without fear of being pigeon holed and always remains artistically landscaped, constantly innovative and thought provoking. In more recent years his distinctive style has effortlessly made the transition from world streets to gallery walls leading to him show his work worldwide by taking part in solo and group shows in London, Canada, Tokyo, Berlin, Taiwan and numerous venues in the US.
His highly acclaimed 2006 Bristol show titled ‘The Art of Nick Walker’ took a retrospective look at his work from 1994 to present. This was quickly followed up by the release of his piece titled ‘The Moona Lisa’ which stole the show at POW’s annual shin-dig, ‘Santa’s Ghetto’. The old girl even getting her ‘cheeks’ out on the BBC’s coverage of the event for News Night. Having conceived and cut this the latest of subversions of the ‘worlds most famous portrait’, Nick painted the image for the first time at the Nuart, music and Art festival (’06) held in Stavanger, Norway each September. The execution of the piece was caught on film and has received over 40,000 views on You Tube.
As well as the sold out ‘To have and To Hold’ show at The Wonderful Workshop in Bristol, 2007 has also seen his editions sell out at the Randall-Scott Gallery in Washington DC and feature ‘Found’ show at the Leonard Street Gallery, London. Autumn 2007 will see him exhibit what he himself has referred to as his ‘hardest & most time consuming body of work to date’ in London. 2008 sees Nick kicking off with his first solo show in Los Angeles at the Carmichael gallery in February.
Nick continues to be hugely popular in the UK and worldwide.
The true gent of the street art scene (yes, way before it went showbiz!); ladies and gents, I give you Nick Walker aka The Apish Angel and man of many hats!
Though he's not really aware of it, is a founder member of Nuart, had he not responded with the enthusiasm he did back in 2005, then it's doubtful we'd have continued to develop it in the direction we have.
Mir (NO)
MIR is a difficult artist to pin down, often found globetrotting and working alongside the two other Norwegians of note Dolk and Pøbel. MIR's work deals with social injustice and often tackles difficult subject matter with a level of sensitivy that's rarely used in this medium. He doesn't simply berate the businessman, but extols him/us to throw off the shackles of 9 to 5 living with a series of characters that don't just criticize but offer hope and alternatives. The business man burning his briefcase ala Jimi Hendrix, The Sheep headed, briefcase carrying man, stood patiently looking at his watch whilst his life, family and the city slowly slips by.
These thought provoking images hopefully lead us to reflect on how we're living. Like a favourite song lyric or a soul mate, they rouse us to thought. MIR's work is often more of a gentle nudge, he offers up a mirror to our lives in areas of the city where it's most needed, in areas where we are often too busy to notice and contemplate those around us. Specifically those in need.
MIR is also capable of putting the boot in when necessary, as the image above shows. MIR is working on something special for us this year. We havern't yet seen it, but I expect it to generate a lot of soul searching amongst those who do.
We like MIR, we really do.
M-City (PL)
The first time I came across the work of M-City I was stunned. I'd become used to seeing small, short & well cut propaganda like works, scattered throughout various urban environments, and it was this type of work that first aroused my curiosity in the medium as a vehicle for more than propaganda and beautification.M-City takes it to a whole new level, and if you had any doubts about artists using the Stencil as a valid tool within fine art, then M-City immediately dispels it...it's more than another brick dislodged in the City's stand against street art. It's a whole wall and then some...
"The inspiration behind the architecture of M-city came mostly from the architecture of Threecity (Gdansk, Sopot, Gdynia, Baltic coast, north of Poland) and it's surroundings, but there's no avoiding motifs from other regions of Poland. The architecture of the town is in a sense a promotion of groups of people who work together for society. These include independent media, charities, non-governmental organisations, independent theatres etc. Most of the project are realised on especially chosen walls and match the historical or architectural context of the surroundings. The people on the stencils are mostly the artists friends or people involved in some local social activity.
One person created most of the Cities, although the biggest ones gave the opportunity for friends and sometimes occasional bystanders to help out. Such meetings have the atmosphere of an art picnic, most of the helpers had already being introduced to the stencil technique, and the technique itself is not a demanding one. It's enough to have imagination and a drive for creation, then one can be very creative with stencils. What's interesting is that unconsciously people often tend to create their own town/district - people living in blocks of flats tend to paint b.o.f., people from villas tend to build villas, people from around the port will picture the port etc. The same refers to the figures appearing in the Cities - they seem to have a story on their own". M-City
At www.m-city.org you can find an interactive application for constructing the cities on your own, from the same elements as were used in the real world. The constructor came to life to prolong the life of Cities when they cease existing in the real world. Up to date Cities were built in: Threecity, Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Poznań.
Logan Hicks (US)
Logan Hicks, Los Angeles stencil artist, was classically trained, but cut his teeth on the industrial streets of Baltimore, Maryland. (Recently re-located to NYC)After college, Logan formed Workhorse Printing, a textile screen-printing business that worked closely with Corporate Clients for high volume textile printing. During that time, Logan began to screen-print limited edition prints of his own work. He would wheatpaste them on the abandoned buildings near high traffic areas of the city.
Encouraged by the response of his art in the public arena, he chose to move away from textile printing and focus solely on his own work.
This change led to a move to Los Angeles that landed him at ground zero of the urban art movement that had been gaining momentum throughout the late 90's. Logan was unable to relocate his screen-printing shop to Southern California. Eager to continue his art, he began using stencils as a substitute for his screen. The stenciling method mimicked the principles and processes of screen-printing, but with a more gritty, urban look with an immediacy that was unable to be duplicated by screen-printing. This new approach to creating art was quickly adopted as his sole medium.
By using the tools of graffiti artists, Logan was able to tame the crude medium and package street art into a tangible, digestible product. Now known for his hyper-detailed, meticulously hand-cut stencils, Logan has rocketed to the top ranks of his field with his borderline obsessive approach to creating stencils. Using subject matter such as urban cityscapes, architecture, and organic forms, he focuses on exploring patterns and details or finding beauty in the mundane.
Past projects have included textile designs for companies such as K-Swiss, Burton Snowboards, Tribal Gear, and Upper Playground; murals for RedBull, lectures in Slovenia, as well as a stenciled animation episode. Currently, Logan is focusing on his gallery work in order to concentrate more deeply on his intricate large scale works.
While walking the line between commercial artist and fine artist, Logan has managed to showcase his work in dozens of galleries internationally. We're very proud to have this internationally acclaimed artist along to produce, what we're sure will be showstoppingly good work.
Larry Reid (US)
Larry Reid is an independent curator and freelance critic based in Seattle, USA. He has presented the work of accomplished visual and performing artists including William S. Burroughs, Chuck Close, R. Crumb, Einsturzende Neubauten, Karen Finley, Leon Golub, Mike Kelley, Nirvana, Henry Rollins, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, Shag, Annie Sprinkle, Art Spiegelman, Sonic Youth, Survival Research Laboratories, Andy Warhol, and Robert Williams, among countless others. He is a regular contributor to Juxtapoz arts journal and The Comics Journal. He has co-written several recent books including Charles Krafft's Villa Delirium, Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art, Blight at the End of the Funnel, Tiki Art Now! and Rat Fink's Revenge. He currently serves as Curator and Events Coordinator at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle.
Kngee (JP/US)
One of the benefits of being involved in this ever expanding community, both on and off-line, is the amount of passionate individuals who dedicate an unhealthy amount of time searching for interesting art and artists to share with others, either privately or through art forums. I don't remember exactly how I stumbled across Kngee's work, but I suspect it was through one of these forums.
I was immediately struck with a deep sense of the isolated, the outsider, the artist. A wanderer looking for meaning in a vast urban environment. It could just be that I was feeling particularly melancholic that night...or maybe warmly drunk.
Abandoned buildings with threatening skies, busy streets emptied of people, silent freight train yards with trains destined for who knows where..all cut with an incredible eye for detail in a photo realistic style that again, demands a level of solitude that's reflected back at you through the content.
Feeling unusually poetic..I set off to find more about the person that produced the work and hooked up with Kngee. This was long after the line up and the cash for this years Nuart had been used up, b
ut I still wanted to expose the work to our audience and so offered Kngee the choice of making some canvasses to show and we'd cover the costs of the shipping. The work arrived recently and is as good as promised.
Kngee recently quit his day job to concentrate on his art, his story is hopefully the start of a classic street art fairy tale..we hope to be around to find out how it ends.
I hope Kngee doesn't mind, but we're publishing the biog he sent without corrections, I think it gives a great insight into the mind of someone burning to make art. If only more of us had the courage to do the same..
KNGEE (JP/USA)
Kenji Nakayama is originally from Hokkaido, Japan. He is currently residing in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States where he works as a designer/artist.
Kenji’s been creating stencils for around 4 years. "When I first saw stencils in a book, I was just amazed, especially Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and Logan Hicks...those artists were huge influences"
Instead of going to art school as he’d have like to, Kenji instead, graduated from the technical institute and started working for industrial firms as an engineer, however, he was always trying to spend his spare time making art, in 2004, he started taking his art more seriously, and shortly afterwards decided to leave the industry to pursue his dreams as an artist.
“I think it was a right decision at the right time to switch my career, I learned so many things while working as an engineer, and throughout my previous careers.
I have always tried to perfect the skills of my craft, and focused on the quality of my work. I have always believed that quality is better than quantity”.
Today, Kenji is focusing on photo realistic multi-layer stencils with his unique abstract background work. Capturing a moment of his daily life, which is inspired
by graffiti, street art, and the industrial structures that form the backdrop of most graffiti artists worlds.
WWW.KNGEE.COM
Karolina Sobecka (US)
The technologies of projection and its creative possibilities have mainly been used by Vjs and Videoartists. For more than 20 years they have been working with classical videoprojection in clubs, galleries and at corporate entertainment events. Recently, the likes of Graffiti Research Lab and Karolina Sobecka have been exploring the uses and boundaries of this technology for straight up street work. The ever decreasing costs and ease of use of these types of technologies, should see an explosion of their uses over the coming years. The ephermeral nature of both urban projections and graffiti, one purposely so, the other not so, opens up the possibility of a dynamic meeting of works in a city near you soon.
In contrast to Graffitti, the legal consequences of creating this type of work are not yet well defined by Law. As projections do not cause any changes to the projected background, it will be interesting to see how the law reacts if its technologies are used intensively.
Kiss the future... and watch out for the tiger at this years nuart.
"At night projections from moving cars are shone on the buildings downtown. Each car projects a video of a wild animal. The animal’s movements are programmed to correspond to the speed of the car: as the car moves, the animal runs along it speeding up and slowing down with the car, as the car stops, the animal stops also. The framerate of the movie corresponds to the speed of the wheel rotation, picked up by a sensor. If the presence of a moving object (such as another car or pedestrian) is detected with proximity sensors, its animal "avatar" appears in the projection. The Projection disappears and flickers as it is supported by the architecture. The city itself is an active partner in creating this alter ego. We are elevated from the everyday reality through this element of fantasy into a world with more dimensions, possibilities and perhaps beauty."
Herakut (DE)
Graffiti duo made up of Hera and Akut who combine multiple techniques of both spray can and traditional painting methods in their highly stylised street works.
Herakut is a symbiosis of the aliases Hera and Akut, two graffiti artists from Frankfurt and Erfurt, Germany. Their collaboration started when they first met in 2004. Both were invited to paint at the Urban Art Festival Sevilla in Spain and before that time had only seen each other ́s work in graffiti magazines. To everyone and themselves it was clear that despite the fact they both focused on character painting their styles had nothing in common whatsoever. And that has not changed a bit.
The differences in Hera ́s and Akut's ways of approaching art and the painting itself are vast. Akut started doing graffiti at the age of fourteen with no artistic background. The photorealism he spraypaints today is self-taught and needs a bundle of preparations consisting of a concept that has been mapped out on the computer, high resolution photo-material and a predefined assortment of aerosol paints. If this is all set, Akut patiently assembles his characters dot by dot with one eye on the concept, the other on the wall, while blending out everything else.
Hera in contrast thinks that preparing a piece is to handcuff yourself. It ties your perception to the scetch and allows no space for the influence of the surrounding atmosphere nor any immediate response to the wall as a very induvidual medium to paint on. Different from Akut who had experienced graffiti closely connected to the hiphop-culture, Hera just felt the urge to work big-dimensioned when she originally started to paint on walls in 2001. Therefore none of the unwritten rules and restrictions of the established graffiti scene had an impact on her work although another mental boundary did: As reaction to years of strict eductation of artistic techniques which Hera had received as a child, she today demands as much freedom as possible for intuition and spontaneity in a painting.
“Opposites attract. Opposites attack.” When Akut and Hera paint together now, they prefer shift work. So, after a sloppy background done by Hera, Akut creates a detailed layer for the face without knowing what kind of body will “spontaneously show up” at the end. The reason for mixing these two different signatures, and fighting as well as compromising a lot while doing so, is simply for the fun of surprising yourself with each outcome. It is risky and slighty schizophrenic because a piece by Herakut always contains two different messages or at least intentions since there were always two brains seeking to express themselves within only one picture.
Eine (UK)
Eine specialises in producing huge letters on store fronts across London. A "writers" writer with close association to Banksy and Pictures on walls. Eine is a renowned London based "Writer" who specialises in the central element of all graffiti, the letter. From single letters, to complex and wry combinations, Eine's alphabet can be found throughout London. Huge individual latin letters on store front shop shutters, in a style he has made his own. Originality, distinctness and a clear profile that sets his or her letter apart from all others is a key goal for any "Writer". Eine's letters transgress the usual stylised image devised to depict form and emotion, and through a combination of colour, placement and size, become fully formed and unique personalities of their own.
Eine, like all good street artists, has found in the culture of Writing, a way to not only utilise the city as a stage, but also as a medium. The city has always influenced the form and architecture of Writing, Eines concept of using Store Fronts to advertise nothing but his "letters" is a stroke of genius that often goes uncredited. Instantly recognisable by passers by, these store front letters serve as a reminder that Writing is ART with a capital A.R.T.
Writing is an integral part of modern urban culture, tags have become so ubiquitous that they have become practically invisible in an urban camouflage of billboard adverts, flyers, graffiti, throw ups, logos, stencils and pieces. Only the "Writer" who has developed his or her own personal style from a clearly defined canon of forms and who has spent years fine tuning their style can hope to compete for our attention.
Eine manages to achieve with a few cans of paint what a hoard of multi million budget advertisments fail to achieve everyday. His letters grab our attention and through this they make the city their and our own. They make London home. We're very proud to have him involved in this years event and look forward to having him vandalise (beautifully), our fair city.
Dotmasters (UK)
The Dotmasters are a series of popular fine art masterpieces for the urban environment. The works are stenciled onto unwitting gallery walls and subsequently defaced. These acts of vandalism endeavor to question this acts classification as a crime. Can beauty be used to damage property? Is the vandalism of a white wall greater than the vandalism of the culturally respected image?
The stencil works are GPS Plotted, photographically recorded an this information is made available from this site. Each work will be reproduced in print form available from street locations bought via a mobile phone. The price of these works increments by its production price with each sale. Each customer receives a unique price for a print from that location. As specific locations prices rise at different rates a dynamic market is created and those quick of the mark are rewarded with cheaper prices.
As the worlds of graffiti and fine art collide the dividing lines become blurred. The crime becomes a valuable commodity steeped in credibility for those involved.
http://www.c6.org/thedotmasters
Dolk (NO)
There was a time when I thought every country would eventually have it's own version of Banksy, it was only after several years of seeing the work of weak copyists that I decided otherwise and realised that Banksy was an artist of pure genius, a true pioneer and one of a kind, there wasn't two Mark Rothko's, two Andy Warhol's, two Caravaggio's.. why would there be two Banksy's. But... there were and are, many incredibly talented artists influenced by those above, who used previous achievements and templates as a starting point to build their own body of work. Movements and schools are not the preserve of a single artist, but a free flowing exchange of creative ideas, techniques and theories that merge at different points to create something new. The same... but different.
Dface (UK)
One of the UK's best loved graffiti artists has, over the past few years, been turning his hand to far more than just "writing" on walls. One of the legendary Finders Keepers crew and the man behind London's renowned Stolenspace gallery, Dface has been responsible for some of Europe's leading shows dedicated to urban art. Curator, Writer, Sculptor, Designer.. the list goes on. A true renaissance man who's capable of not only tackling new media but of making them his own. Dface's images peer out and peer down at you from walls, doors, lamposts and bus shelters all over the globe. Working with a variety of mediums and techniques, D*Face uses a family of dysfunctional characters to satirise and hold to ransom all that falls into their grasp. A welcome jolt of subversion in todays media-saturated environment.
His aim is to encourage the public not just to 'see', but to look at what surrounds them and their lives. Recent examples include his collaboration with H.R.H Queen Elizabeth II on a series of bank notes that were put into circulation for an unsuspecting public to find in their change. His most audatious piece was a portrait commissioned by the vatican to commemorate the instatement of Pope Benedict XVI, The piece was shown for the first time at the Outside Institute in May 2005, as well as on MTV Rome, to critical acclaim.
http://www.dface.co.uk
http://www.stolenspace.com
Charles Krafft (US)
In the late 1980s, while contemplating the potential of visual art to influence the social order and reflect authority – a phenomena he would later define as the “Iconography of Power and Capital” − artist Charles Krafft discovered an enigmatic group of artists, musicians and intellectuals in the newly independent Republic of Slovenia called NSK. Krafft was immediately seduced by the construct of the 14-member Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovene Art) collective, which includes a theater company, graphics studio, painters group, philosophy department, and the internationally popular industrial rock band Laibach. He soon arranged for a major exhibition by NSK and a Laibach concert in his native Seattle. This set in motion an association with the group that would indelibly transform his career as a fine artist.In 1995, with support from the Citizens Exchange Council/Arts Link partnerships program and private patronage, Krafft embarked on a journey to Slovenia to formally collaborate with NSK. It was during this trip that he accompanied designated members of the collective on a “cultural relief” mission to war-ravaged Sarajevo as a photographer for the final leg of Laibach’s ” Occupied Europe: NATO Tour l994 - l995”. Krafft found the experience so subversive it restored his waning faith in the redemptive power of art. His observations and interaction with the beleaguered citizens of Sarajevo inspired his signature “Porcelain War Museum Project,” which debuted at the Ministry of Defence Headquarters in Ljubljana, Slovenia in December 1999 with all the pomp of an international diplomatic affair. Krafft’s arsenal of blue and white Delft-style ceramic weaponry – at once alluring and grotesque – has been subsequently exhibited in galleries and museums around the globe. This installation documents Krafft’s first collaboration with NSK and examines an important episode in the history of their politicized aesthetics.
"The Sarajevo trip was an extraordinary adventure in a convoy of three armored U. N. vehicles. The route was littered with the charred rubble of small towns, tanks, checkpoints, blasted bridges and stalled traffic. The Laibach-NSK embassy events were a crowded conceptual tour de force conducted over two days in the bullet-riddled National Theater. Nothing coming close to this multimedia cultural relief had happened in Sarajevo since the siege of the city commenced four years ago. The mise en scene of the totaled city certainly lent extra meaning to Laibach’s spooky cover of “Sympathy for the devil.
You could smell the sulfurs of hell and the stench of death in the snow blowing through the ruins of block after block of shelled hotels, hospitals, homes and shops. The peace accords were announced in Dayton when we were there, but no one we met really cared. They’ve heard it all too many times before. Stayed above the ’84 Olympics Village that is a heap of ruins now. The nebulous front line of the Serb territories was only 300 meters away. Still, life goes on there. The dignity of the surviving victims of this medieval abomination against 20th century civilization is really moving. We all left enriched by their determination to coexist and help each other through the trauma ".
Charles Krafft
Excerpts from an e-mail to a friend, November 29, 1995
http://www.antiquesatoz.com/artatoz/krafft/
Blek Le Rat (FR)
Long before there was “street art” as we now know it, there was Blek le Rat. He was one of the first graffiti writers in Europe; one of the first people to use stencils to make public art on the street; one of the first—if not the first—to break away from the dominance of New York graffiti style; and one of the first to use icons instead of writing his name. He has been an inspiration to artists all over the world, and without a doubt is one of the reasons that urban art is so prevelant today. "The Graffiti movement has no other intention than to speak via pictures. Words for the community, words of love, words of hatred, of life and death. It’s just a fine and subtle kind of therapy and an attempt to fill the emptiness of this terrible world, to cover public space with pictures that people going to work can enjoy.But the authorities were not sympathetic to our cause and declared war on graffiti. They invented a lot of laws and waged war until every little stencil graffiti or art expression had been stripped of its soul. Young artists were threatened with punishments and fines completely out of proportion to the act.
As if graffiti were more dangerous than drugs. But the immense desire to paint and to express themselves encourages artists to support one another. Doing it all round the world, they made this urban art into the biggest art movement of the 20th century, just look at the spread of their pictures and the authenticity they radiate. There is no place in the world with no mural artistic traces. Even in Peking, under the strongest regime, there is a man leaving his mark right at this moment".
Blek le Rat.
Arofish (UK)
A truly purist & activist stencil artist that we're very proud of bringing over for Nuart. His works can be found on the streets of London, Lebanon, Baghdad & Palestine. His stories of “getting up” astound even the most hardcore of street artists. Where others fear to tread, Arofish goes. Spreading hope, art and a sense of humanity in communities oppressed and ravaged by war.Excerpt from "Notes from Iraq
"I was in Iraq for about 6 weeks, which took in Christmas/ New year 03/04, and the arrest of Saddam. I stayed mainly just in Baghdad, but I took a train down to Basra in the south where a friend was staying and I stayed there for 9 days. It was a beautiful, slow ride down through the Mesopotamian countryside. I'll never forget the sight of what I assumed were oil refineries in the marshlands as we arrived in the night. The flames of the towers looked like candles on water. On the way back though, the train stopped in Hilla in the middle of the night and everything was in darkness and chaos. Some young guys with rifles almost dragged me off the train and tried to put me into a room in the tiny station. It turned out that the tracks had been sabotaged further up the line and they wanted to get me out of sight (for my own protection) as the train was going nowhere for the night and the bandits come out in the early hours. Railway security - teenagers with Kalashnikovs.
No way was I staying there. After hours of confusion and frustration I end up making a deal with a guy to drive me to a "garage" where, he says, I can get a car to take me the 100 kilometres to Baghdad. That was my understanding anyway, but it was far from clear (my fault for not learning more Arabic before travelling alone in such places). So we drive off down the road and there are no signs and little light. On the way he starts talking about the war, the Occupation, the Americans, the British. Dropping bombs. Stealing oil. His brother was killed. He is shouting now, yelling, and the car is veering and swerving all over the road. I'm trying to hold myself together but I'm thinking that this is looking more and more like a kidnap scenario - let's just see what this "garage" really is...The "garage" turns out to be a layby with a few guys just hanging around with their cars; smoking, chatting, scratching their nuts, waiting for a bit of work or a miracle like everyone else in the country. It looks genuine enough and the guy who drove me here was probably giving me a hard time just to screw a bit more cash out of me at the end. Well it worked; at that point I was actually glad to only get ripped a couple of dollars. I make sure he stays until I get a vehicle sorted out for the next stretch then I pay him off.
The guy in the next vehicle is pretty slippery too, but after a couple of hours and quite a bit of arguing he gets me to a part of the capital city that I recognise and I don't even bother fighting him for my change. I almost had tears in my eyes at this point, so overwhelmingly relieved to be back in the warmth, comfort and safety of Baghdad "
Arofish
www.arofish.co.uk
Motherboard (NO)
The "motherboard" is a central element of the personal computer, the main circuitboard to which one connects memory, peripherals and other devices, which extend the capabilities of the computer. Motherboard (the art group) may be described as a collective of artists and 'techsperts' gathered around the core members Per Platou and Amanda Steggell, for various projects. The majority of their work has taken the form of installations and performative live art happenings, mediated and modulated by the intermediary influence of the net, and often integrate audience participation and interaction. Through their ambitious vehicles they explore the materiality and resistance of the net as a mediating instance.
http://www.notam02.no/motherboard
Eelus (UK)
After crawling out of the mucky mines of Wigan and onto the dirty streets of London, Eelus was instantly drawn to street art. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he started to get involved and using his background in design and illustration he’s taken his love for such topics as Sci-Fi, fantasy, horror, the bizarre, girls…and bizarre girls. He is now sticking them all together to create monstrosities to inhabit the streets and your living room walls.
Toby Sparks (UK)
rbn_esc’ fuses cinema and live experimental visuals. A series of character scenarios, invites the audience to construct a narrative or cultural critique: rbn_esc >> urban escape.
I n four acts t his montage of ‘urban alienation’ plays through character scenarios mixed live from a library of clips to a soundtrack provided by an audio artist. ‘rbn_esc’ premiered in a headline slot at the big chill festival 2004 alongside four tet. This years musical artist yet to be announced
http://www.tobyz.net/
NOOD (NO)
A rare chance to see the legendary NOOD. Dedicated to the noble pursuit of conceiving, processing and looping sound resources from the net- and meatspace. Nood released the first-ever internet CD "HETTYNETTLETTY" early '96, a glam mixture of lo-fi grooves, chaotic jazz breaks and strange ethnic sounds mixed with impressions from brickspace and acoustic instruments such as guitar, dictaphone, and the indian pump organ. Ulvers (ulf knudsen) and Pepe (per platou) ARE NOOD.
http://www.notam02.no/nood
