elusive moose » Culture

Must-see exhibition at Soli Brug, Sarpsborg

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:36:43 +0000

Hariton Pushwagner

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:34:54 +0000

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

Norway’s greatest saxophonist

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:03:39 +0000

Famous locals: Jan Garbarek

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:59:35 +0000

Did you know that Jan Garbarek, the great Norwegian saxophonist, was born in Mysen, Indre-Østfold? Garbarek was the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war and a Norwegian farmer’s daughter. Entirely self-taught (he began playing the saxophone aged 14), he started recording in the late 1960s. His big breakthrough came after he performed with Keith Jarrett, which brought his talent to the attention of a wider international audience. Deeply rooted in Norwegian folklore, his sound is unique – and as clean and clear as the big open spaces of his native Norway. His is a distinctively European kind of jazz, but one that has won him fans the world over – he is widely recognised as one of the most significant jazz musicians of his generation. Some of his best known albums include Twelve Moons (1992), Visible World (1995), Rites (1998), and In Praise of Dreams (2003). Garbarek issued his first live album, Dresden, in 2009. His latest offering, Officium Novum, in cooperation with the Hilliard Ensemble, came out earlier this year. His daughter Anja Garbarek (born 24 July 1970), who is a Norwegian singer-songwriter, received the Spellemannsprisen (the Norwegian equivalent to the Grammy Awards) in 2001 for her album Smiling & Waving (open class category).

More info on Garbarek at www.jazzreview.com/articledetails.cfm?ID=170

Official website at www.garbarek.com

Untitled, by Ana Luisa Rébora

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:06:20 +0000

From Mexico to Norway – Ana Luisa Rébora

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:02:05 +0000

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.

Zooicide, by Dolk

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:27:11 +0000

Dolk puts Norwegian street art on the map

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:21:54 +0000

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/

My kind of humour

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:46:57 +0000

Nemi, by Lise Myhre

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:46:26 +0000

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.