LOGAN HICKS MURAL SAVED

We haven't posted on this previously as most of the debate has been in Norwegian only, also because we didn't really want to start a mass campaign or create any overtly critical responses that could jeopardise our ability to secure walls for future Nuart events.

We'd noticed a few months ago that the shopping center that we produced the Logan Hicks piece on back in 2009 was undergoing a major external refurbishment. We tried to find out what the plans were for the work, whether it would be painted over or preserved, but our mails weren't answered, we were well into production on Nuart 2010 so it was forgotten for a while. A few weeks ago we noticed the scaffold had now moved into place over the work. Nuart assistant Kristel asked one of the workers what their plans were for the work and was told it would be painted out.. white. She contacted the center and was told in no uncertain terms that the work would be buffed.

Now here's the dilemma..the piece was downtown in a very central location and served as a fantastic advert for street art and it's ability to brighten up and make more interesting what is a pretty depressingly commercial area. But....as much as we and the surrounding community loved the piece, it wasn't our wall, it had been given to us in good faith and we generally hold to the conventional view that one of the interesting aspects of Street Art is its lack of preciousness and self importance, its "Religiosity"if you like, coupled with its intrinsically ephemeral and transient nature.

This raised quite a few interesting questions for us.

1) How could we campaign to save a work for the community on a wall that doesn't belong to us and that could potentially damage our ability to create works on private and public property in the future.


2) If a central tenet of Street Art's being and beauty is it's transient nature, how could we legitimately campaign to save the work.


3) If works are to have preservation orders placed on them, who decides which works to keep and for how long and which works to buff.


4) Are large scale semi-legal Street works to fall under the term "Mural"?, what's the difference between a "Mural" (which presumably should be saved) and a "Street Art" piece (Which can seemingly be buffed at random)

Having pondered on the above, we thought fuck it, who cares, let's try and save it and pontificate on the issues later.. we called the center's owners to see if they would be willing to keep it and were met with an initial icy response of "No, it will be painted over.. It's our wall"..  or words to that effect. And they're right of course. Fortunately we had a considered answer " Yes, but it's in our Community"... " Yes, but it's our wall".... Now had this been a smaller private company and not a large Trans-European corporation that pretty much dominates the center, we may have left it at that, but we felt the center owners had enough resources at hand, took enough out of the community in way of rental charges and billboard revenue..that they could afford us this one little concession. One piece of art in a sea of otherwise bland consumerist billboard propaganda.

At the end of the day, we decided to simply publicize the case through local media and let the people decide. The case took off.. and today we're very happy to announce that the center's management and owners have decided to retain the work.

Thanks to everyone who took part and offered support through our facebook pages and local media and a special thank you to Steen og Strøm and the center's management for *"Keeping the Piece".

* See what I did there

Media case below..

NRK :   Logan Hicks Mural Saved
NRK :   Mural can be painted over
R Avis :Mural could be saved
R Avis :Keep Hicks Mural

PS : If anyone has any considered responses to the questions listed above, we'd be happy to hear them
PPS : If you've been considering donating a wall to Nuart, don't let this put you off. Just read this article in todays The Sun ;)