Martyn Reed is a British artist, writer, curator & exhibition organizer based in Stavanger Norway. He is the founder and artistic director of the Nuart Festivals. Much of Reed’s work and the platforms he creates are collaborative events that revolve around promoting art as part of everyday life using counter cultural strategies, values and thinking. He is a regular contributor to Juxtapoz magazine and has written extensively on street art and its related practices.
SAUS caught up with Martyn during the preparations of the second edition of the succesful Nuart Aberdeen festival in Scotland which is taking place April 12-15.
Hi Martyn, thanks for participating in SAUS’s Interview Series. For anyone that might not be familiar with your work, could you provide a brief description about Nuart and when and why you created it?
There’s a long story and a short story, the long includes a life of working class poverty, crime, social workers, gangs and detention centers. But also a slow awakening to unions, class and race politics, collective activism and eventually arts place in it. The short is, I managed to get in a position where I had the resources to create a platform for an art form I believed could help others avoid the first part of this paragraph.
What is your background, and what brought you to Norway?
All of the above were in some ways shaped by working class subcultures, Mod, Casual & Rave. So whilst we had little in the way of social or economic capital, we had an abundance of cultural capital. I drifted from “Casual culture” on the terraces into early rave culture and on to art school in London where I eventually stated to combine them. I promoted clubs, Dj’d, Vj’d and eventually found a symbiosis between art, activism and club culture. New Media Art if you like, at the time aligned with social justice movements such as “Reclaim the Streets” and early Cyber philosophy theorists such as Mark Fisher. A few friends and I formed a collective called Phased, which were subsequently invited to Norway to produce a Millennium festival called Void. This was in 1995. In 2000 I produced a “Norwegian Numusic” night at Cargo Club in London where I was introduced to Banksy’s work. Something clicked, and in 2001 I set up Nuart.
Great line-up of artists in the second edition of Nuart Aberdeen festival which is taking place in April 2018. Could you tell us more about what to expect?
Thanks, I’d always been a little reticent about unmooring Nuart from its Stavanger base and turned down a lot of offers, but Aberdeen gave us 100% artistic freedom and access to the city centre, an incredible opportunity and level of trust that I hope we repaid in 2017. It’s a difficult place to work as most of the buildings and walls are heritage listed and out of bounds, but this also opens opportunities to include none mural based artists, or Street Artists as we used to know them. We have incredible partners in Aberdeen Inspired and support form the City Council alongside a host of local businesses, volunteers and the creative community. You can expect a genuine festival vibe, some incredible works and a conference with some of the worlds leading thinkers on critical Street Art practice. Also a host of film premieres such as Beuys and Shadowman, Fight Club (an audience participation debate fuelled by alcohol) and a launch party with none other than Chicago House pioneer Robert Owens.
Some claim that street art and graffiti fall under the umbrella of illegal work, while murals are more commissioned, therefore legal and understood as painting. Do you agree with these distinctions or not? And why?
Obviously I have my preferences and those lean towards the unsanctioned and illegal, there’s a surfeit of 3rd rate murals at the moment, but to be honest, I’d rather have them than not. We all have a “right to the streets” and need to assert that at every opportunity. But it’s “the street” that acts as the grit in the oyster that makes the pearl. Murals that neglect this, well, that’s just decorative art, valid in its own right and no doubt has its place in the world, but not something I’m particularly interested in. In saying that, it’s impossible to ignore the genuine depth and power in the likes of work from for example Axel Void, Borondo, Blu, Hyuro etc. Though personally I make no apologies for claiming them as Street Artists and not “neo muralists” or whatever we’re calling it these days.
In general Street Art varies from continent to continent, and is often a reflection of what each country is dealing with. I would like to know your opinion on the differences in street art from the corners the world, and which you identify with the most?
I think all communities exhibit cracks, either structural or in many cases literal where vernacular street culture breeds and thrives, from tags and stickers in deprived urban regions to urban knitting in middle class communities, stencil art and on to large scale sanctioned murals. Iran is always interesting, Middle East stencil artists, Israel’s apartheid wall and the work coming out of the Arab Spring such as Bahia Shehab’s work have an obvious authenticity that we need to retain as the foundation of our culture.
Banksy is the one of most popular street artists of the last decade or so. In your opinion, what do you think makes him so popular, his art or the message behind his art?
As an artist, he just has it all, the perfect storm of skill, concept, politics, ethics and resources. Marry this to a seemingly innate understanding of how media works and we have what in German would be called a “gesamtkunstwerk”, a total synthesis of the arts, a universal artwork, but one that goes beyond even that by integrating the anonymity of the artist. But perhaps even more than this, he’s been the catalyst in creating literally hundreds if not thousands of budding artists and art interested public whose last experience of art was probably their last art class at school. He’s had the effect that a thousand institutional outreach programs could only dream about.
New developments and fast gentrification are reaching an all-time high, pushing the local populations out of their homes. The predominantly online attacks have at best labeled the artists as naive to the developer’s game, and at worst complicit. Do you agree/disagree with that generalization and why?
Artists have always been stalked by property speculators so no surprises there, rampant gentrification and the privatization of public space should be fought at all costs, based on the terms the local community about to be displaced set. The investigative documentary “The Right to Wynwood” should be mandatory viewing for all, there’s no doubt some unscrupulous developers use street artists and festivals as the shock troops of gentrification, anyone caught enabling it should be sent straight back to street art school.
Are there any artists you’re interested in collaborating with?
Always. Theastre Gates would be interesting in the context of unsanctioned Street Art. David Hammons too. I’d like to see some serious names within contemporary art produce work on the street without the resources of a studio or institution behind them.
We often hear about artists going the commercial route and labeled as sell-outs. But in our capitalist system, I think it’s difficult to survive as a full-time artist. Artists need to have a business sense in order to make a living, and may choose to work with government organizations, real estate developers or corporations to supplement their income. My question to you is: how does one cooperate with a large entity while ensuring moral ground? In other words, what constitutes “selling out,” arguably the worst insult that can be lobbed at an artist? Do you think this term is outdated?
I think it’s a huge mistake to concede the state and society to Capitalism. There’s a huge groundswell of support for alternative modes of governance and for structuring society and it beginning to show. Particularly in our more progressive institutions. I don’t believe we’re as Fukuyama famously stated, at the end of history, I like to believe this is the last gasp of neo liberalism. Art and culture have a crucial role to play in this. The “It’s difficult to survive as an artist so I’m going to take commissions from Mcdonalds”, no, try surviving serving fries. Art still has work to do in the world, we are absolutely obligated to using our voices and platforms as artists and curators to challenge the prevailing Neo Liberal paradigm. If you think “fuck it”, life’s too short, fine. But don’t moan when you get called out on it.
Tell us something about you that would surprise our readers?
I won the world championship in sarcasm in 2004.
What can we look forward to seeing from you next? What collaborations, shows or projects do you have planned?
We have Nuart Aberdeen just around the corner, followed in May by a three day Nuart Plus conference in Oslo at Kunstnershus, we also recently launched the Nuart Journal, an academic journal dedicated to critical street art practice so I’ll be working on that, Urban Creativity in Lisbon in July and then Nuart proper the first week in September. In-between we have upcoming shows at the gallery from Richie Culver, an exhibition taking inspiration from DIY skate culture and few other pending side projects. A busy year.
Any words of advice for aspiring new artists?
Remember there’s a difference in what you say and what you do. You don’t need a “reason” to make art, don’t waste your time coming up with reasons, forget about the art world and critical theory, just put your hand to the plough and push on. Drop the idea that all you need to make it in the art world is a functioning website and an #insta account. That’s a neo liberal myth suited only to the servile. Make something, perform something, write something, then give it away. Then do it again, and again. The rest will follow. If we’re to move beyond this age of Twitter and Tear gas, we need to hear your voice through the white noise of our recent history. And always remember you’re never at the bottom, so don’t pull the ladder up behind you, reach down your hand.
Thank you Martyn for your time. Hopefully our paths will cross in the near future.
Website: www.nuartfestival.no
Gallery : www.nuartgallery.no
Web : www.nuartaberdeen.co.uk
Journal : www.nuartjournal.com
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