Festivals
The first recorded street-painting competition and 'festival' was held in London in 1906.
In 1972 the first 'Italian' International Street Painting Competition was held in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy. It is part of a two-week festival celebrating the Assumption with the streets of the city being turned over to the festival.
In 1987, Wenner and Manfred Stader introduced street painting to Old Mission Santa Barbara, California.
One of the largest events in the United States is the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival, held in Lake Worth Florida. Started in 1994, it attracts 100,000 visitors over the weekend to see 250 works of art by over 400 artists.
Started in 2002, The Denver Chalk Art Festival on Larimer Square, located in Downtown Denver, is a free two-day street-painting festival. More than 200 artists spend hours during the weekend turning the streets of Larimer Square, into a museum of chalk art. The Festival is produced by the Larimer Arts Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting arts awareness and education in Denver.
In 2008 Mark Wagner and 6,000 people (over 4,000 elementary school kids from Alameda,CA) set a Guinness World Record for the World's largest Pavement Art covering over 90,000 sq. ft. (8,361 sq. meters). A satellite photograph was taken of the artwork.
In 2010, the First International Street Painting Festival held in the United States was organized by Denise Kowal, president of the Avenida de Colores, Inc. 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that produces the Sarasota Chalk Festival. More than 250 street painters attended the Halloween-themed festival of 2010 that featured street painters from around the world and ran for eight and a half days.
In 2011 the First International StreetArt was staged in Wilhelmshaven in Germany. The event is scheduled to return in August 2012.
At Sarasota's 2011 chalk festival Dutch artist Leon Keer and the team of Planet Streetpainting created the 3-D street painting of the Lego Terracotta Army. The chalk painting was inspired by Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Terracotta Army "in honor of the arrival of Ego Leonard and to support his release out of his custody.
In July 2011, the 3-Way-Split Project produced the First Annual in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, United Kingdom. The city of Lake Worth Florida is cited as the source of inspiration, by the project director. Nine street artists from the United States came to Southend-on-Sea to support the launch of this new annual event. In 2012 the festival will be held on the second Saturday in September.
In August 2012 the Second International StreetArt was staged in Wilhelmshaven in Germany. 37 artists from all over the world traveled to Wilhelmshaven in Germany. Also the largest anamorphic pavement art 3-D streetpainting picture was build by: Gregor Wosik, Lydia Hitzfeld, Melanie Siegel, und Vanessa Hitzfeld.
In 2012, A company called We Talk Chalk, lead by artists Melanie Stimmell, Julie Kirk, and Remco Van Latum, introduced the art of 3-D street painting to countries such as Israel and Thailand. The city of Chiang Mai hosted their first street painting festival in March 2012. To celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of Tel Aviv suburb Ramat Hasharon, Israeli and 8 International artists from 'We Talk Chalk' used 3-D chalk drawings to transform Bialik Street into an urban art compound. The festival had as many as 50,000 visitors, including Israel’s President Shimon Peres who posed with paintings by Melanie Stimmell and Ruben Poncia.
Read more about this topic: Street Painting
Famous quotes containing the word festivals:
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)