Posts Tagged Art
Must-see exhibition at Soli Brug, Sarpsborg
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature, Photos and videos on August 28, 2010
Hariton Pushwagner
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature, News on August 28, 2010
Today was the opening of the Pushwagner exhibition at Soli Brug (on until 5 Sep). Pushwagner, real name Terje Brofos, was born in Oslo in 1940. One of the most acclaimed, and controversial, contemporary Norwegian artists, Pushwagner is known for his colourful yet dark pop art tableaux inspired by city life. The office, commuters, tall buildings and cars are recurring themes in his work, in which distorted perspectives, repetition, and primary colours are used to striking effect to depict a modern society in which the individual has all but disappeared.
Educated at the National Arts & Crafts School, and then the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, he has also studied/lived in London, Stockholm, NYC and Paris. Pushwagner won back the rights to his drawings from Morten Dreyer, his former agent and benefactor, after a high profile court case in Oslo in 2009. Pushwagner, who in 1998 was homeless and struggling with drug addiction, had ceded the rights well under their market value. Dreyer was asked to return all artwork, estimated at a value of 30 million kroner, and pay one million kroner in compensation.
More info on Pushwagner at www.pushwagner.no
From Mexico to Norway – Ana Luisa Rébora
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on July 15, 2010
Another local artist whose work I love. I was actually very tempted to buy one of her paintings at the exhibition she had at Soli Brug, Sarpsborg, a couple of years ago – it was a rather big painting of a group of people by what looked like a huge waterfall, in shades of blue, browns and white – reminded me of Gullfoss in Island, very atmospheric, and just beautiful! Only the price tag (around 10,000Kr if I remember correctly) stopped me 
Anyway… When I say local artist I mean an artist based here, by the way, because Ana Luisa comes from Mexico originally, but Norway has been her home for the past 10 years – she now lives in Eidsberg, Indre-Østfold, although she still spends the winter in Mexico whenever she can. Her husband grows and sells organic Christmas trees, while she paints in her studio. Check out her work at www.analuisarebora.com or even better, visit her exhibition at Gallery Stallen in Gamlebyen, Fredrikstad, which is on until 30 July.
Art and history in the Old Town
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature, Photos and videos on June 19, 2010
Focus on Gamlebyen: Bastion 5
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on June 19, 2010
Bastion 5 in Gamlebyen is a complex run by local artists and craftsmen, consisting of a cafe, exhibition galleries and workshops. The building furthest from the river was originally a bakery, while Cafe Magenta is where Gamlebyen’s slaves were kept when they were not working in the fields outside the city. The Provianthus or storehouse, the largest of the three buildings, is also Gamlebyen’s oldest. The wall facing the river is an impressive 4m-thick in places. The building was completed in 1691, and today houses the main exhibition space. Here you will find pottery, sculpture, jewellery, paintings, and other arts and crafts for sale. A great place to browse, and maybe find an unusual souvenir to take home.
Bastion 5 is open Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat-Sun noon-4pm. Toldbodgaten, Gamlebyen. Tel: 98 63 91 49, www.bastion5.com
Dolk: Norwegian street art’s superstar
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on May 29, 2010
Dolk (‘Dagger’ in Norwegian), aka Dolk Lundgren, is Norway’s most famours stencil artist. Originally from Bergen, he started to paint (or should that be ’spray’? ‘tag’? ‘graffiti’? anyway, you know what I mean…’) in 2003. His Banksy-style stencils, which are often applied with a good dose of humour, tell a whole story in one image, and their simplicity is no doubt one of the key factors in their success, as they are immediately and universally understandable. His most popular works include, among many others, Che, Burger King, and Zooicide (see above). Dolk has for several years been involved in the Nuart Festival in Stavanger, a street art festival organised every year in Rogaland, southwest Norway. Other projects have included a series of large scale works in the Lofoten Islands, where Dolk has been painting on derelict houses in several remote locations, and a commission for Halden Prison, Europe’s most modern prison, in Østfold, which now boasts several full-length stencils by him, including ‘Prisoner’ and ‘Police Line’.
You can see some of Dolk’s works at www.dolk.co.uk
More about the Nuart Festival at http://c6.org/nuart/
The Hvaler International Sculpture Project
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature, Nature and the great outdoors, Photos and videos on May 2, 2010
Walking in Østfold: Rødshue, Hvaler
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature, Nature and the great outdoors on May 2, 2010
This is another lovely walk on Hvaler. There is a sculpture park with several works by artists from both Norway and further afield (Italy, Japan and Sweden to be precise) interspersed along the coastline here. The most striking is probably Fortidens Vitner (Witnesses of the Past) by Alessandro Stenico, two grey stone columns (they look like metal from a distance) overlooking the ocean (see photo above). It was the first sculpture to be erected on the site in 2005. A new sculpture is due to be unveiled every summer, giving locals and visitors alike reasons to come back year after year.
Stone industry experienced a boom in Hvaler, as well as in several other parts of Østfold, during the latter part of the 19th century, and the area around Rødshue is a testimony to this, with discarded stone blocks of various sizes still dotting the landscape, and the remnants of quarry activity still visible in many parts. This makes for an interesting landscape to explore. Depending on how much time you’ve got on your hands, and/or how energetic you feel, you can continue on to Grønnebakke to the north, or Ørekroken to the east, both of which offer good swimming opportunities. Just north of the sculptures there is also a big stone cross erected in 1995 to mark 1,000 years of Christianity in Norway.
More info about the Stenkunst Hvaler project (the Hvaler International Sculpture Project) at www.stenkunsthvaler.no/english.html
How to get there: Coming from Fredrikstad on Rv 108, take the first road to your right once you get to Kirkeøy (after the Hvaler Tunnel). This is a small road that goes past many hytter (summer houses). Keep going straight for about 800m until you get to a small car park. There is no P sign but you can’t drive further on anyway, so you’ll know you’ve reached your destination. A path leads from the car park to the coast.