The latest public work by British contemporary artist Robert Montgomery has just been completed in the city of Trondheim (situated where the River Nidelva meets Trondheim Fjord) in Central Norway. Montgomery is well known for his work in public space and billboard poems. He also makes light works, fire poems, woodcuts, paintings and watercolours. His work brings text art closer to the language of poetry and his striking new mural at the Airport reads:
BLUE LIGHT FADES IN WITH THE NORTH SEA MIST AT DUSK, LITTLE STRUCTURES OF WOOD AND GLASS STAND OUT, HUDDLED TOGETHER WITH GOLDEN LIGHTS, THESE ARE OUR CITIES – FRAGILE AND ISOLATED ACROSS THE COLD LAND/ CONNECTED BY WI-FI NETWORKS AND PSYCHIC WAVES, IT IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO TELL IF OUR ARCHITECTS, BANKERS, OR POETS DREAMED THEM. LISTEN CLOSE, IN THE SKY ABOVE, YOU WILL HEAR THE POUNDING HORSES OF LOVE.
Of his striking new piece, Montgomery says:
“I have written the poem to be both local and universal. I wanted it to have a flavour of the North Sea, and at the same time allude to cities, humanity and travel more universally. Since I grew up in Scotland close to the sea, and love the landscape of Norway, I feel I have a good feeling for the place. The idea of the poem in the mural is the world looked at from above, considering those elements of our world that are natural, those elements that are modern, how our cities sit in the landscape, and the magical element that cities have for me- places of mystery and adventure. Ultimately, like much of my work, the poem is about love. For the context of the airport I have changed my more common black background to a lighter blue colour, to allude to sky.”
Project Director, Martyn Reed has enjoyed a long a fruitful relationship as a curator for Avinor for many years, primarily through the partnership with Nuart Festival in Stavanger. Their past collaborations have seen Sola airport become one of the world’s finest airports to experience world class international street art murals – everything from the global graffiti collective 1 UP Crew to Norway’s finest, Martin Whatson and Hama Woods.
“The car park hosts a beautiful mural from Portugal’s Add Fuel and the arrivals hall boasts an immense mural from UK duo Snik. But possibly the most significant work is on the airport’s control tower. If you’ve ever flown into Stavanger, it is impossible to miss the full top to bottom mural from Poland’s M-City. So when Avinor reached out regarding the possibility of creating a work in Trondheim at Værnes, we were excited. It’s an interesting time for the culture – people generally now have some idea of what street art is and where it’s usually situated. For this project, we wanted to play with those preconceived ideas a little. There’s a danger of street art getting pushed into a youth and hip hop related culture, and though there’s nothing wrong with that – it is foundational to our culture – it’s also so much more. Basically “Art” in all its glorious diversity, only on the street and not mediated by the municipality or committees. These types of projects give us the opportunity to show “street art” in all of its forms and how it sits within both contemporary art and public art. Robert Montgomery comes from academia, works in the public art and contemporary art field, and is regularly invited to biennales, but he also works on the streets under his own initiative. It took a little convincing for Avinor and partners, but once we got past this pre-conceived notion of what “street art” actually “looks” like, they were all in. And huge credit to them for supporting it, because it’s never easy explaining that this is also “street art”. To have a specially commissioned poem from Robert Montgomery, and one that’s very specific to the site and the region, was beyond all expectations. And to be honest, we didn’t really have the budget for something of this standard and this scale, but everyone loved the project so much and committed to it. We would normally produce this as a stencil or vinyl, but in keeping with the nature of the project and our desire for quality whilst constantly trying to improve, we reached out and commissioned Ciaran Globel, from the Globel Bros. Globel is a Glasgow based artist in his own right, who’s spearheading a resurgence of traditional hand rendered signwriting whilst including contemporary elements and attitudes more related to graffiti and street art. To have these two incredible talents on one project is pretty special.
We hope the people of Trondheim and visitors to and from the city enjoy the work and the sentiment. In my opinion every airport in the country should have one, but it’s good to see that Trondheim got there first” Martyn Reed
