Urban Hidden Gems

A look at contemporary art festivals around Europe (that mostly artists know about)

1. Katowice Street Art Festival (Katowice, Poland)

Street art has been a growing art form in Poland for the past several decades, with its origins stemming from political unrest. The 1980s saw a not-so subtle induction into the world of street art, with images and expressions of protest against the communist regime. Twenty years later, street art has not only become common place on the walls of cities, but locals actually embrace the expressive art form, and the color it adds to the greyness of post-industrial cities like Katowice, Poland. With a population of nearly 300,000, Katowice has been hosting an annual Street Art Festival, inviting mural artists from around the world to turn their city walls into an open-air gallery, nudging locals to consume art on a daily basis.

Tato nie płacz, by Łukasz Surowiec, fot. Davido, and rys. Zosia (From the collection of Katowice the City of Gardens)

International artists like Aryz (Spain), Axel Void (Haitian and Spanish) and local artists such as Mariusz Libel spend weeks preparing for the festival, studying their environment and getting to know the people who live in these spaces before starting the conversation on walls, along with a dozen other invited artists. The city of Katowice has slowly become a city of murals since the beginning of the festival in 2011.

Axel Void, 2015 (From the collection of Katowice the City of Gardens)

2. Museum Gugging (Vienna, Austria)

Vienna has been a breeding ground of art for centuries, and the beauty of this city is that the evolution of its great minds never seems to cease. The Gugging is a perfect example of this. Located just on the outskirts of Vienna, the Gugging is not your typical art museum. It is actually a psychiatric institution which has put itself on the map within the art world thanks to its patrons’ artistic expression. The Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic has offered one of the finest collections of Brut Art housed in a gallery just off the clinic. The Brut Center features work on display by some of the talented patients who have learned to express themselves through a form of raw art, commonly referred to as Outsider Art. Their work was first displayed in 1970 in a Vienna Gallery and the permanent collection can be seen today at the Gugging Center, just a bus ride away from Vienna city center.

Sinfonia pastorale, by Jean Dubuffet, 1964 (From the collection of La Galleria Nazionale)

3. NuArt Festival (Stavanger, Norway)

NuArt Festival has been gathering like-minded urban artists since 2001, with one simple aim (well, relatively simple). Events, performances and installations aim at creating a conversation around the concept of what art is. Every September, both renowned and newcomer street artists, bring forth their cultural identity in a series of personal work, relaying their message both inside, outside and alongside the city walls to talk about the power of the urban art form that is known as street art.

Hashtag everything, MOBRST (From the collection of Outdoor Project)

NuArt Festival has led the way in terms of street art festivals, considered a leader of its genre by attracting acclaimed artists from all around the world to a city with a population of 240,000 people which was named the European Capital of Culture in 2008. Past events have seen names works of Alexandros Vasmoulakis (Greece) and Bahia Shehab (Egypt). Bottom line? If you’re into “new art”, this contemporary festival should be on your list of essential contemporary festivals to visit.

Relics, by Alexandros Vasmoulakis, 2015 (From the collection of Outdoor Project)

4. “No Limit” Mural Festival (Borås, Sweden)

Awarded the label of “Remarkable Festival” by Europe for Festivals (EFFE), the “No Limit” Mural Festival is first in class when it comes to artistic integrity, message and community commitment. Started in 2014, the festival invites artists from all around the world to help turn Borås into an outdoor exhibition. Once a year, the 70,000 local inhabitants of this railway hub city welcome well-known street artists and a captive audience to a festival dedicated exclusively to mural culture.

Etam Cru, 2014 (From the collection of No Limit Street Art Borås)

5. Bergen International Festival (Bergen, Norway)

Combining contemporary theater, dance, opera, music, installations and visual arts, the Bergen International Festival is pretty much your one-stop shop for contemporary culture. One of the largest and long-running Nordic festivals focusing on art, the festival and the coastal city of Bergen and its locals, have opened their doors to artists since 1953. All for the love of art! Once a year for two full weeks, the colorful and charming city of Bergen sees some of the best forward-thinking performances in theater, home to debuts in dance, opera, music and plays. The Bergen International Festival is a crash course in international contemporary happenings in the art world and an absolute must for anyone with a penchant for art.

Learning to Love You More, by Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July, 2002-2009 (From the collection of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA))

11. Opera Forward Festival (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Amsterdam’s contemporary art scene has given way to performing arts for the last three years in a row running. The Dutch National Opera has opened its doors to a more progressive take on opera, leading the way in “new initiatives, new work, new talent”, making opera more approachable for the contemporary mind than ever. Always innovative in their performance and staging, the Opera House has taken it a step further with works that are coined to “embrace the unknown”—and that it does with work that sets the bar high when it comes to new talent and innovative visual performances.