Posts Tagged Culture
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.
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/
Nemi, by Lise Myhre
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on May 21, 2010
Some of you will have come across Nemi before, the goth girl with a predilection for black clothes and dark humour, whose tough attitude hides a softer side. But did you know that she was Norwegian? The brainchild of Lise Myhre (born 1975), one of only a handful female cartoon creators to have made an impact internationally, Nemi began to appear as a guest cartoon in the Norwegian daily Dagbladet in 1999, before getting her regular slot on the newspaper’s pages a year later.
Cynical and romantic at the same time, Nemi finds it difficult to relate to boys. She hates blonde bimbos, but loves spiders, heavy metal, beer and chocolate. She is not averse to a practical joke either. While the cartoon is read by both sexes, it is no secret that Myhre has helped attract a new female readership to the genre. Nemi has a monthly magazine with a circulation of 70,000 in Norway. It is the second most popular cartoons in the country – only Pondus has more readers. Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Germany also have their own Nemi magazines and books, and Nemi also appears in dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites in Scandinavia and the UK. These include Metro in the UK, Dagens Nyheter in Sweden and Dagbladet in Norway.