Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Street Art




Street art - Graffiti art (Yes, they said "art")
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Check out all these links for more...
The Stavanger Archeology Museum link -
not what you'd expect on such a link, nor on such a building either
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Herakut - The Street/Graffiti artist link: this 'wall art lady' is on the Stavanger Archeology Museum Bldg & I think it is their (herakut's) creation...sorry I still don't read Norwegian?!

And I've been to the local museum & took a photo too, much like the one between the houses from the street looking back to the wall - but it's still in the digital camera so I borrowed a photo or two from the musuem link for now above...
Must go back to read what's in English alongside her too, it starts out
"My Third Grade Teacher told me..."
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www.nuart.no/nuart/
NuArt - A Celebration of Contemporary Urban Art & Street Culture
Included are 2 - You Tube Video's

Also, listed under the first photo I noted, 'Graffiti Research Lab - USA'
(There's a research lab? but first I'll discover Stavanger street art...)

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Lurs

Lurs

Description from National Museum in Denmark:
The sonorous mystical tone of the bronze lur would ring out at religious ceremonies where the instruments were played in pairs as the priests and priestesses led ritual processions, some of the priests wearing horned helmets.
Depictions of such ceremonies can be found on rock carvings.

Lurs were cast in separate plates, and some have 'jingling plates' to create a magical sound. Thirty five lurs have survived in Denmark as have a further 24 in Sweden, Norway, North Germany and Estonia.

(Note - on other webpages these numbers differ)

============

Description from Wikipedia:




Bronze lurs

The bronze instrument now known as the lur is most probably unrelated to the wooden lur, and has been named by 19th century archaeologists, after the 13th century wooden lurs mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus.
Bronze lurs date back to the Nordic Bronze Age, probably to the first half of the 1st millennium BC.
They are roughly S-shaped conical tubes, without finger holes.
They are end blown, like brass instruments, and they sound rather like a trombone.
The opposite end to the blown one is slightly flared, like the bell on a modern brass instrument but not to the same degree.
A typical bronze lur is around two metres long.


==============

To listen to a sound bite of actual playing of the Lurs, in pairs, go to this link:

These 2 selections are the best, they are what the recording at the Stavanger Archeology Museum sounded like to me...haunting, ethereal, as said above--mystical (and I wonder further would the ancient Sirens songs have sounded like them? to lur-e the sailors...)
aa
"Forntida klanger"
Intrada
==
Lat & Lur
Musikproduktion
Anne-Marie Sundburg
(Note: I think she's from Sweden)
Her Link: www.lurspel.nu/
Note: once again, many of these webpages are in Norwegian -but you can translate them with Google

Borre style


A Borre style example
Description from The Vikings in the Museum of Archeology Stavanger brochure:
"...a gold clasp from Nedrebo on Bokn (island)...originates from the 900's, round gold plate wtih decor in the style of the Nordic animal ornamentation, the so-called Borre style...4 sections, main one cross motif...riveted to a round silver sheet plate, 2 thin, entwined gold threads are laid around this...thought cut from an Irish hanging bowl, a holy water vessel which was used in the Roman Catholic church service..."
Note: No photo of it is on their webpage - but I saw the particular clasp it describes to find it was very well preserved, surprisenly mixed among other Bronze Age items on display on a shelf in a large case - I would of had it stand alone I think & you could not view the bottom side of it either, but then I am not an archeologist nor part of the museum to have a say - the detail was intricate & curious, I stood a long while to try to figure out the faces of either people or animals in it's design...so I returned home to read more about this style of jewelry making from the Bronze Age & found a lot of photos/links...see below...
Stavanger Archeology Museum

Description from Wikipedia:
The Borre style is a Scandinavian animal style which is named after a boat grave in Borre, Norway.
The Borre style succeeded the Oseberg style and was partly contemporaneous with the Jelling style.
The Borre style evolved at the latest c. 850 and was still used in the late 10th century.
Its most characteristic motif is the so-called "ring braid" which consists of a symmetrical braiding with two bands, held together by rings that are surrounded by square figures.
The animal ornamentation of the Viking Age is usually categorized into Oseberg style, Borre style, Jelling style, Mammen style, Ringerike style and Urnes style.
Other Links to View photos/read more...

Silver jewelry replicas of Borre style:
www.urweg.com/list/broaches.html




More descriptions, photos of samples:
Preview from book:
Metalworkers of the Borre Style, pg 140-141 - preview from book
The Viking World by James Graham-Campbell, David M. Wilson

Here Comes the Sun

Current Exhibition:



Andeformete bronsekar fra Slovakia og Ungarn. Andeformete bronsekar from Slovakia and Hungary. Foto: The Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Ungarn. Photo: The Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary. Copyright. Copyright. Duck shaped bronze vessels from Slovakia and Hungary. Duck shaped bronze vessels from Slovakia and Hungary.




Bronselurene from Revheim, Sola. Foto: Terje Tveit, AmS. Photo: Terje Tveit, AMS. Copyright. Copyright. The bronze lurs from Revheim, Sola. The bronze lurs from Revheim, Sola.


The Sun Chariot - photo from the Danish Pre-history Museum
Link to see & read about the original: www.nationalmuseet.dk/sw59869.asp
(Note: a copy in the Stavanger Arkeologisk Museum...from catalog, it's an unnumbered copy)
The sun's journey


Rogaland in the European Bronze Age

The 25 September 2008 open the museum in Stavanger doors for a unique Bronze Age exhibition.

The exhibition theme is the contexts of Europe at that time, both in idéverden and in the form-related expression.
This period is a period where the archaeological material has a very expressive common over much of Europe - from Maharashtra to Crete, and from Ireland to the Caspian Sea.

We will collect the Bronze Age material from their own collections, and objects from Maharashtra found in other museums in Norway.

These objects, we view the relationship they once were part of, through innlån from various European museums.

Including to the European community, and diversity be expressed in the Bronze Age material form and decoration.

This will thus be the core of the exhibition, richly supplemented with gold.
(Note: the intro translation above is from this link, the webpage is in Norwegian, you can then copy&paste the address into Google Search, hit Search, find it on the list - or it might just be on it's own - & click on "Translate This," which it will go to in English, or mostly English...)

Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Old Ha Vicarage



Olavsrosa.no - your guide to cultural heritage adventures...

Hå gamle prestegard (The Old Hå Vicarage)

Description:

The Vicarage at Hå, built in 1637 at the very edge of the sea, is today a centre for art and culture.

The gallery hosts temporary exhibitions of art and cultural history.

The archaeological finds of an 8,200-year-old settlement in the area are displayed in the basement of the characteristic Jæren-style house.

The beach along the shoreline is the site of a large burial ground dating back to the time of the Great Migration.
The Vicarage includes a café and the artwork is for sale.

Opening hours
Open all year
May 15-Sept 1: Tue-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat & Sun 12am-5pm.
The remainder of the year: Sat & Sun 12am-5pm.

Address:
Hå. Follow Route 44 westward from Vigre. Parking Lot for Kongevegen Trail
(The King's Road).

Note: Artist showing at gallery above, starting 29th November...
Virtual Woodscapes (Videos) & 3-D Wood Art (stills & Videos) & Wood Block Art (prior works)
by Artist - Yngve Zakarias

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Outsider Art




Rogaland Kunstmuseum (Art Museum)

02.11.08-11.01.09

Classic works form Hans Prinzhorn collection.

Link: http://www.rkm.no/ (click on English at the top)
See Map & Directions & Information & Cafe & Shop...


......
The Prinzhorn Collection


Overview

This "other" view of life appears to be quite hermetic, yet we for our part are generally unaware of the relativity of our own thinking, as laid down and shared by the society we live in.
These works enable us to experience an underlying dimension of humanity that is potentially present in us all.

Above partial description from this Link: http://prinzhorn.uni-hd.de/im_ueberblick_eng.shtml
Examples from this link - photos following from The Prinzhorn Collection webpage, they are not on Rogaland's Kunstmuseum's webpage (but there is a catalog at the museum here for the collection that's translated into English...)




mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

The Broken Column Sculpture Project

Permanent Collections

Permanent sculpture project
In February of 2003, Rogaland Museum of Fine Arts officially inaugurated Antony Gormely’s sculpture project Broken Column.
With cast-iron sculptures modelled from the form of the artist’s own body, the project spans the difference in height between Rogaland Museum of Fine Arts and the city harbour.
Simultaneously, each site-specific placement marks the wealth of activities and life that the city encompasses by being placed within different contexts found in society.
Their exterior and their form, their height over sea level, and the direction that they face, connect the 23 sculptures.
As such the sculptures create an imaginary column that is spread throughout the city, but simultaneously, they would unite the city if it were possible to see them together at once.
The sculptures are identical, cast in iron from the same form, and have during their maturing process become covered with a fine layer of rust.
The direction which the sculptures face was established by the first sculpture that completely breaks the sea level, found today at the Millennium Square at the centre of the Stavanger inner harbour area. Following its line of sight, the beholder’s view stretches out towards the sea.

Note: description above on the Rogaland Kunstmuseum webpage, under Permanent Collections
m My personal mission, should I decide to take it - & while I'm living here, will be to find all 23 statues in Stavanger - going from the museum to the harbor...
Oh, there is a catalog of them & where they are too, by the way, in the Rogaland Museum - so that I don't have to wander around aimlessly in hopes of finding them like while I'm still alive...

Saturday, November 8, 2008

White, white, yellow, white white...


...curious about the color of our house...it really stands out, being yellow and not white...



So why is there a yellow house in Old Stavanger?...


Most who wonder are surprised when I tell them that our yellow house is one of the few remaining that still have their original color.
The houses in old Old Stavanger simply weren't white!
Back in the 18th and 19th centuries paint was made from natural ingredients -
mainly boiled linseed oil - and colored by natural pigments.

Price for these pigments varied widely, with red being the cheapest and white the most expensive. Farmers thus tended to use red paint for their utility buildings - barns, sheds and so on - and reserve the expensive white paint for their own house...

The inhabitants of Old Stavanger, on the other hand, were only rarely sailors.
Mostly they worked in the canning industry that was the major source of income in Stavanger. For instance, the original owner of the house I live in was a cooper.
These weren't rich people, and they had no source of cheap white paint.

So they painted their properties in whatever color was available and that they could afford... They were green, ocher, blue, red and surely, in some cases, white...

Through elderly relatives we've been told that it was the same color back in 1907 when my wife's great grandfather bought the house.

So what happened?
When the city voted to preserve Old Stavanger back in the '60ies,
the old quarter was a bit of a slum... At the same time,
most of Old Stavanger was privately owned by people without much money.
To help these, the city voted to give out free paint to all owners.

And for some reason somebody...decided that the paint should be white, and that Old Stavanger would be more picturesque with all the houses the same color.
A very few of the property owners protested.

My father in law, who owned our house at that time, met with the city architect...and obtained his permission to exchange the free white paint for ocher. So a few houses in Old Stavanger remain in their original colors, ours even "by permission".

Every couple of years I can be found in a ladder repainting our house...
Almost every time I get to explain the mystery of the yellow house in Old Stavanger to passersby...over the past few years I've started to hear the same story told by the tour guides...

If you ever happen to pass a yellow house in Old Stavanger and notice a guy on top of a ladder, feel free to say "hi!"...

(Orig) Posted...Monday, April 02, 2007

Note: Excerpts above borrowed from The Old Stavanger Blog, you can read more there...
(few posts in English & a link to more in Norwegian & other links of interest about
Old Stavanger there too...)


Included was this link to a little travel report & photos - cleverly called The King, the Can and the Oil... www.globosapiens.net/travel-information/Stavanger-2083.htm

(mentions a lake I've hiked already around here in Stavanger too--Stokkavannet)

Old Stavanger is also called "Gamle" Stavanger if you go off Googling on your own...