NUART PLUS 2017 PROGRAM

This year's symposium is dedicated to exploring ‘power’ in the public sphere: who has it, how do they wield it, what are the conduits to it and the mechanisms that control it? Is it distributed fairly and what happens when you challenge it?

The two-day academic symposium is also supported by a host of off-site debates, artist talks, film premieres and workshops at venues across Stavanger exploring similar themes.

All events are free, unless stated otherwise on the program.
 

DAY 1 — THURSDAY AUGUST 31

15·15–16·00 Artist Presentation by Vermibus (DE)
Location: Kunstskolen i Rogaland, Birkelands gate 2

Join Berlin-based ad-buster and artist Vermibus for a multimedia presentation about his unique brand of anti-advertising activism.

Vermibus regularly collects advertising posters from the streets, using them in his studio as the base material for his work. Here he transforms the advertisements using solvents to disfigure the faces and flesh of models and brand logos. Once the transformation is complete, he then reintroduces the adverts back into their original context, hijacking their visibility and ubiquity in order to present his own subversive, anti-consumerist messages.


19·00 Hand Luggage Only
Location: Nuart Gallery, Salvågergata 10

An exhibition of small works by this year’s Nuart Festival artists. This year's participating artists have been challenged to produce work that will travel in their hand luggage: work that will be questioned, scanned, interrogated, quarantined, stripped, bullied, fingerprinted, and ultmately..we hope, released for the show, where it will join contributions from local artists operating outside of the traditional art world.

Featuring artworks and objects from Add Fuel (PT), Ampparito (ES), Bahia Shehab (EG), Carrie Reichardt (UK), Ian Strange (AU), John Fekner (US), Know Hope (IL), ±maismenos± (PT), Igor Ponosov (RU), Nina Ghafari (IR/NO), Ricky Lee Gordon (ZA), Slava Ptrk (RU), Vermibus (DE), Wan Ho (CH/NO) and more. 

21·00 Fight Club: Revolution or Evolution
Location: KÅKÅ, Valberget 3 

Death to Art!, Burn down the Institution, Abolish Bureaucracies, Smash the System, Reclaim the Streets.

The paradoxical ascent of a socially engaged contemporary art in a morally bankrupt artworld, not only complicit with neoliberal ideology, but exemplifying it, has left us wondering, can the artworld evolve to serve the people, or have we reached an end game, a final neoliberal plateau of mundane middle-class biennale banality destined to repeat itself ad infinitum with little to no impact on either art or life.

Can the current global monoculture of homogenised institutional contemporary art be brought back into everyday life, become life?

Should Critical Street Art, Activist Art & Progressive Graffiti Artists engage with the neoliberal hierarchies that permeate and dominate the contemporary artworld in a vainglorious attempt to “evolve” the system, or should we simply light it up and move on!

More Red Wine, or Molotov Cocktails, you the audience decide

Team leaders Evan Pricco (Managing Editor of Juxtapoz Magazine) and Carlo McCormick (pop culture critic and independent curator) go head-to-head to argue these points and more in the latest installment of Nuart’s legendary Fight Club.

Refereed by Doug Gillen (Founder & Director, Fifth Wall TV)

DAY 2 — FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 1

11·00 –11·40 Jan Zahl (NO) in conversation with Ian Strange (AU)
Location: Tou Scene, Kvitsøygata 25

Artist Ian Strange discusses his career and work to date with Jan Zahl, Arts Editor at Stavanger Aftenblad newspaper. The talk will begin with a six-minute screening taken from the recently commissioned series of shorts entitled ‘Home : The Art of Ian Strange’ by Australia's ABCTV.

As part of his participation in Nuart Festival, Ian Strange is the latest artist to contribute to The Aftenblad Wall - an on-going public art project that sees invited artists create work on a large-scale billboard in the heart of Stavanger. By mimicking the scale and visibility of advertising, the project aims to raise awareness about who has the power and authority to communicate messages and create meaning in our urban spaces.

The Aftenblad Wall is located at Ryfylkgata 22 in Storhaug in Stavanger east – a short walk from Tou Scene.
 

12·00 –15·30 Seminar Day 1: REVOLUTION
Location: Tou Scene, Kvitsøygata 25 

From the Berlin wall to the Palestine wall and Syria, unsanctioned art has often been used to give voice to the voiceless - providing an outlet for expression that is suppressed by regimes and dictators in all its other forms. What parallels are there between these historical acts of resistance and the wider street art movement, which today operates within an increasingly privatized and controlled public space? What can we learn from studying the ethnographic, anthropological and sociological implications of street art practice, and what does this tell us about the power of art to change the world?

12·00–12·15 Welcome and introduction
by Pedro Soares Neves (PT)
‘Power and the City’

12·15–13·00 Promises not kept: Art, the art institution and social change
Keynote speech by Mikkel Bolt (DE)

If we zoom in and look at the art institution from the inside, from within the framework of its relative autonomy, we can, on the one hand, observe the art institution as a space for political discussion and militant actions that rarely takes place elsewhere, which is also why artists and cultural producers played a leading part in Occupy Wall Street in New York in September 2011 for instance. On the other hand, contemporary art is the window dressing and sale of only apparently critical utterances or forms that in no way challenge the ruling taste, but, on the contrary have become indistinguishable from all the other forms of aesthetic entertainment. Contemporary art is no longer just a research and development unit of advanced capitalism but is part and parcel of an all-encompassing experience economy on a level with advertising, fashion, music, TV and games.

In this presentation, Mikkel Bolt will attempt to account for this paradox and ask how we can potentially re-work or end it in an era characterized by crisis and the revival of authoritarian nationalism.  

13·15–14·15 Revolution, From the Artist’s Perspective
Artist presentations by Carrie Reichardt (UK) and Igor Ponosov (RU) followed by a Q&A session with Evan Pricco (US).

14·30–14·50 From Cairo: I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing
Artist presentation by Bahia Shehab (EG)

Six years since the Egyptian uprising the voices that chanted in Tahrir Square have been silenced. The city and its walls do not tolerate anything but the white wash that has covered all the stories. Since 2014, Bahia Shehab has been painting poetry on different walls in different cities around the world. Even if this act is meaningless now, it is a way to leave songs on walls so that maybe change will come one day. 

14·50–16·00 Nerifiti’s Daughter (Scandinavian Premiere)
Film screening followed by Q&A with Bahia Shehab
Hosted by Mikkel Bolt

A story of women, art and revolution, Nefertiti’s Daughters (running time: 39mins) documents the critical role that revolutionary street art played - and is continuing to play - in the political uprising of Egypt.

19·00 Saving Banksy – Scandinavian Cinema Premiere
Location: SF Kino, Sølvberggata 2

Tickets: 100NOK
Seniors/students: 90NOK
(tickets available here)

Saving Banksy is the true story of one misguided art collector’s attempt to save a painting by infamous British street artist Banksy from destruction and the auction block. It asks the question, ‘What would you do if you woke up one morning and found a million dollar Banksy spray-painted on the side of your building?’
 
Banksy has created some of the world’s most iconic street art. His work is deemed illegal by authorities, but at auction, Banksy street-paintings sell for hundreds-of-thousands of dollars. While his work is created for the public, Banksy paintings are being removed by art dealers and resold at auction for huge profits, and the artist receives nothing. The movie is a rare and revealing look at the secretive world of street art and graffiti and its new-found value and worth in the traditional art world.
 
“The importance of ‘Saving Banksy’ is the dialogue of preserving versus stealing one’s art. I hope people take away the overarching theme of the film.  Artists as a whole including musicians and filmmakers all have their art stolen on a daily basis,” said graffiti artist Kelly ‘Risk’ Graval. “This is the bigger discussion that needs to be recognized by all. If people do the crime whether it be stealing intellectually or physically it’s all the same and the consequences should be treated accordingly.”
 

DAY 3 — SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 2

11·00 –11·40 Brave : Nuart x Amnesty International present the case of Human Right's activist Sakris Kupila
Location: Tou Scene, Kvitsøygata 25
Panel debate with Sakris Kupila (FI), Ricky Lee Gordon (ZA) and Annamaria Guttierrez (CU/NO), hosted by Sara MacNeice, Head of Global Campaigns, Amnesty International

Adding his voice to Amnesty International's Brave campaign, Ricky Lee Gordon will create a mural of Sakris Kupila - a human rights defender from Finland who has fought tirelessly for transgender rights in the face of harassment and intimidation - as part of this year's Nuart Festival.

The 'Brave' campaign calls for an end to attacks against those defending human rights, in a context of increasing global hostility against activists. The campaign focuses on people who are taking enormous risks to stand up for our rights through exploring the power of art to push boundaries and stimulate debate. 

Joining the panel debate will be Stavanger's Head of Municipal Council for Culture and Sport, Annamaria Gutierrez, who was instrumental in the Venstre (Left) Party's successful attempt to abolish the law which made it obligatory for anyone in Norway to be sterilised when undergoing the legal process of changing their gender.

12·00–15·30 Seminar Day 2: EVOLUTION
Location: Tou Scene, Kvitsøygata 25

12·00 Welcome and Introduction
By Pedro Soares Neves, Lisbon Urban & Street Art Creativity

12·05–12·45 Trash Talk
Presentation by Carlo McCormick (US)

What do rats, Dada, wheat fields, the radical posturing of Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers, pink trash, fallen monuments, public shame and commodified space have in common? Carlo McCormick, legendary pop cultural critic and Nuart fellow takes us on a journey down the rabbit hole of cultural obscurity to shine a light on transgressive public art practice.

13·00–13·45 DIY Culture & New Utopia’s
Presentations by Adrian Burnham (UK), Pascal Feucher (DE) and Addam Yekutieli aka Know Hope (IL)

14·00–14·30 Panel debate: DIY Culture & New Utopia’s
Discussion led by: Carlo McCormick
Panel: Adrian Burnham, Pascal Feucher and Addam Yekutieli

14·45–16·05 Creating New Cultural Heritage and ‘Rights to the City’
Presentations by Laima Nomeikaite (LT), Javier Abarca (ES), Emma Arnold (CA) and Susan Hansen (UK)

Challenging the prevailing paradigm demands rights to the city and the resources to give citizens agency - resources currently locked into cultural heritage and public art budgets. This series of presentations will explore how intangible and ephemeral art practice can usurp and supplant the staus quo for the benefit of the many, not just the few.

16·05–16·30 Panel debate: Creating New Cultural Heritage and ‘Rights to the City’
Discussion led by: Susan Hansen
Panel: Laima Nomeikaite, Javier Abarca and Emma Arnold

12·00–17·00 TRAFO workshop with Carrie Reichardt (UK)
Location: Metropolis, Nytorget 1

British artist and self-titled ‘craftivist’ Carrie Reichardt hosts a two-day workshop for youths aged 16-22 years old at this year’s Nuart Festival in Stavanger, courtesy of TRAFO youth organisation.

Participants receive a personal introduction to Reichardt's unique mosaic-making technique before designing, assembling and installing a public mural with the artist in Stavanger city centre.

The workshop takes place on Saturday 2 September (1200-1700) and Sunday 3 September (1100-1300). 

19·00 Nuart Exhibition Opening
Tou Scene, Kvitsøygata 25

In addition to presenting a diverse range of artistic expression within the public sphere, Nuart produces one of the most eagerly anticipated exhibitions of the year in Tou Scene’s vast beer halls. Join us for the opening on Saturday 10 September, kl.19:00!

DAY 4 — SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 3

14·00 Street Art Tour*
Meeting point: Tou Scene, Kvitsøygata 25

The first of our weekly Street Art Tours where our Nuart guides discuss the works and the artists behind them as well as some insider and behind the scenes stories. (Approx. 75 minutes)

*Tour given in English

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