LOCK DOWN PASTE UP

La Cage s’échapper, 2018 /paste up in the city of Aberdeen.

We could write reams on how and why we need to remain vigilant in these trying times, how we need to maintain a radical scepticism about structures of authority, including within our own culture, and how we might continue in our attempts to provoke and inspire by placing art on the streets. There’s an opportunity here to show why street art culture, and underground cultures in general, are profoundly relevant to these times. Our Nuart family is working with a need to discover and present content that we are producing organically - to decide that there isn’t a central message, a corporate platitude, or “a way forward” - to drop the idea of “timed posts” and any thought of a centralised marketing plan or strategy to disseminate content. These are unchartered waters, and first and foremost we would like to stay kind to ourselves, gentle to others, and remain in synchronicity with the communities that surround us.

Back in October of 2019, Director Martyn Reed established that both the now indefinitely postponed Nuart Aberdeen 2020 Festival which was set to hit the city in April, and the now digitally launched Nuart Journal: Issue IV, would discuss and relate to the concept of Freedom. At that time our rights to the city were already looking tenuous under an onslaught of private capital appropriating “public space”. Some of the finest academic minds, writers, artists, and vandals produced articles on Freedom, and for the mural component of the festival, a lineup of varied and equally fiery artists were working on visual pieces to align with the same concept.

We now present you with our new project, The Lockdown Edition, which rises from the ashes of what we had originally been working towards for months before the world had to take pause. Giving our original lineup of artists a chance to still communicate with the city of Aberdeen and the world at large during these trying times, they adapted their concepts to suit a poster campaign. Bringing a beacon of light, solidarity, and a forever critical eye, Nuart’s “Lockdown, Paste Up” allows our cast of international artists to maintain a dialogue with the city, and to discuss the concept of Freedom collectively. Artwork by Biancoshock (IT), ICY & SOT (IR), Jacoba Neipoort (DK), Jofre Oliveras (ES), Nuno Viegas (PT), Paul Harfleet (UK), Sandra Chevrier (CA) and Vladimir Abhkh (RU).

Words from Martyn Reed

We’d been contemplating for sometime how to release the content we’ve been working on for the launch of this our 20th Anniversary year. May 1st, International Workers Day seemed more relevant than ever this year, though most of us celebrated it from the comfort of our living rooms, we remained aware that it was a comfort, born from struggles too often fought on the streets. Struggles that many over the years had suffered and died for -and now -rebranded as “key workers”, were once again being asked to risk all for little in return. The launch of Nuart’s Journal on the theme of “Freedom” on that date had a particular resonance.
Nuart’s “Lock Down Paste Up” launches today with a series of new works created in Aberdeen Scotland. Partnering with friends in the city, Nuart have been busy exploring ways in which “street art” can exist and remain relevant in a country locked down by pandemic. “PLEASE WAIT” by Spain’s Jofre Oliveras perhaps best sums up our feelings about the tsunami of content we’ve experienced of late –and hopefully goes someway to explaining why we haven’t yet released these images, these works were produced on the streets between April 22-26th, old news in a culture that now streams content as it happens.
As the scale of the humanitarian crisis was revealed, we felt uncomfortable competing for the public’s attention with the news cycles relentless reports of a serious lack of life saving PPE equipment and a mounting death toll. To be honest, we still don’t, and we shouldn’t let this shift, this industry scale move to occupy our attention in virtual space go uninterrogated. Relocating existing structures and our practice to the digital realm hasn’t solved the problems that were being revealed in the rush to professionalise and rebrand “street art” as “neo-muralism” or “urban contemporary” - it’s merely revealed more of them. Unless we’re content with creating works with all the power of a street art TikTok, then now is perhaps a good time to open up this discussion before the online space becomes too crowded with works fighting for whatever capital is still available.
This marked shift of focus from the public and their needs, on to the artist and industry, on to their needs, is of course nothing new, but perhaps now is a good time to pause, to take time to reflect, to reassess where we should be focusing our attention and resources. “Lock Down Paste Up” has to some extent allowed this, it’s brought us back to gifting those areas and people without access to the arts, for whatever reason, some form of agency in shaping their own space -and by default, their own lives. The power of festivals of course, is never really in the scale of the production or the skill of the artist, but in the assembly, in the IRL “campfire” coming together of people in time and space to share and recollect stories of the day, both real and imagined, the often mundane enlarged and reflected by the fire on to the cities empty walls.
We hope you enjoy this selection from these incredibly talented artists and look forward to joining you around a campfire somewhere soon .
Biancoshock (IT)
Icy & Sot (IR)
Jacoba Neipoort (DK)
Jofre Oliversas (ES)
Nuno Viegas (PT)
Paul Harfleet (UK)
Sandra Chevrier (CAN)
Vladimir Abikh (RU)

Lock down Paste up/Nuart Aberdeen

LOCK DOWN PASTE UP

Words from Martyn Reed

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