Moving inside: Streetart for sale!

          I was happy when I got to know about StreetSmart, and exhibition event with local and international Street Art artists here in Bergen. "Bergen Kjøtt" in Sandviken was a perfect venue. 11 artists with 40 works all together. Prizes in the range of about 110 pounds to 9000 pounds.  As a fan of of outdoor street art. I have mixed feelings about moving this kind of works inside, into the galleries and into a commercial setting. As a traveller, and a frequent visitor of galleries, I love art both inside and outside. When I left the Street Smart exihibition yesterday, I still had mixed feelings. Some works did work, and some did not. The highlights for me at this exhibition was the works by L.E.T.  As far as I know, L.E.T. is a franco/german street art artist based in Düsseldorf. I´ve never seen his work outside.

Works by L.E.T.: I´m so angry I made a sign!

 Martin Whatson and DotDotDot is two norwegian artists that was well represented at the exhibition. I love both artists outside works, but inside? Actually not. I just dont think its good enough and/or original enough. Both artists uses a lot of references to art (popart and street art) in their works which makes them recognisable, but these references is used so frequently that it becomes boring. 

Their more famous brothers Banksy and Dolk do the same references with succes, but in a very unique way. 

In the middle: Match This by DotDotDot

Both artists had similar stencils in different sizes, but why is it so that a big piece is so much more expensive? Repetition is a part of the Street Artist´s "weapon and teqnique" and is best in the streets (outside) because the environment makes all the difference. At this exhibition it looked more like a commercial need. And artists have to survive too :-), I guess and use their momentum (with reference to mr. brainwash).

Two of the biggest works: Martin Whatson to the left and DotDotDot to the right

The venue "Bergen Kjøtt" was great and the works nicely placed and very well organized. I missed a folder or an info paper with small presentations of the artists. it´s a great initiativ from Goblin.mag and I hope they will do this more and better. My wish would be less focus on sale and more focus on presenting street art with more long term exihibitions. This exhibition lasted only two days. 

 The exhibition also worked as a sosial gathering and a meeting place! It was nice to spend some hours there!

One of the most interesting works (from a local point of view) was the piece made by Argus outside on the wall. A comment to the exhibition? I wonder when we finally will see Argus inside....

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

This is the famous quote from George orwell's book Animal Farm (1945). The quote is comrade Napoleons re-formulation of the 7. commandment "all animals are equal" in the ideology of animalism when he take absolute power of the farm and transform it into a totalitarian society.


In history this quote have been used heavily by reactionaries and conservatives to criticise the Marxist and communist ideology and society. And yes, Orwell's fairy tale describes the process and developments of totalitarianism and elitism in ideology and politics, but does his tale apply to us?

 In US, Western Europe and Norway we tend to like that democracy is different, more open and more egalitarian than comrade Napoleons farm. However we tend to forget the part where Orwell describes the the dynamics of power and elitists thinking which may as well apply to our society. Often hidden, but may reveal it self in critical situations. It's difficult for our society to deal with the forces where the main duty is to secure the power base. The agents of these forces are not the main "actors" on the public arena like e.g. Napoleon in Animal Farm or the main politicians and political actors in our society. We may call the forces to secure power base "the shadow" of an open society. These forces rules by comrade Napoleons dictate: "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".