While some art establishments don’t welcome tagging despite their fascination with street art, the artists at NuArt Festival in Stavanger, Norway reminded viewers that you can’t have one without the other. Many of the most well-known street artists active today began as the same kind of teenage taggers that many see as a nuisance — tagging was part of the formation of their artistic identity.
For this year’s NuArt, which took place last week, artists like Hush, Martin Whatson and Dot Dot Dot embraced street art’s less popular counterpart, creating works that incorporated the tags already left behind on the walls by locals (Hush even shouted the writers out on his Instagram). Vhils drilled a portrait of Einstein into the facade of a building (perhaps a response to Kobra’s recent Einstein mural in LA?), C215 painted a powerful raven in flight and Ernest Zacharevic incorporated found objects into his work. Take a look at some photos from the festival by Henrik Haven below, check out yesterday’s coverage featuring David Choe, ROA and more here and stay tuned for further coverage.
Hush
Vhils
Ernest Zacharevic
Martin Whatson
C215
Dot Dot Dot
