Tag Archives: Art Gallery

The Literatu Street open air gallery

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Sunday, 16-June-2024


I’ve mentioned, once or twice, how beautiful Vilnius is.

Literatu street is a great example of that – simply put, it’s a street with a ton of neat pieces of art put up on the sidewalls. Simple, elegant, and clean. An outdoor art gallery created in 2009, with 150 artists contributing their work (mainly small items, about 1ft x 1ft) that now hangs permanently around the street.

It’s a neat way to expand art, and to beautify a city… Similar to something I remember from Caracas, Venezuela, in 2011 where the government had hired artists to paint the construction barriers that were being put up around the city. A way to change the landscape from grey concrete to vibrant colors.

Little things like this, in my mind, make a really big difference to life in cities. I’ve seen it around a fair bit (think the electric boxes with paintings on them), but Literatu street is one of the only actual “gallery” styles that I’ve seen.

The National Gallery of Norway, Nasjonalmuseet

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Thursday, 23-May-2024


Okay I am really excited to share these photos.

I adore art, but I do have specific types of art that I find it easiest to appreciate. Specifically, representational landscapes, with a focus on interesting natural lighting, are the easiest way to my heart. As it turns out, Norwegian history is chock-full of painters who specialized in exactly that!

After two more modern exhibits, mainly focused on pop-culture and challenging the status quo… well, It was a very nice cleanse for my spirit to get back to the simple beauty of the natural world. I wandered the galleries right up until the literal minute that they closed; walking out shortly after the final announcement that the museum was, in fact, now closed so get the heck out. I missed a few of the smaller exhibits, to be fair, but I’m still so thankful that I was able to get to see what I did.

I guess I’ll just have to come back sometime, won’t I?

The Banksey Exhibition in Oslo

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The Banksey Exhibition in Oslo

Thursday, 23-May-2024


Yesterday was my natural history day – the museum, the botanical garden… lots of beauty, but lots of natural beauty.

Today was for something no less beautiful. Today was my art day.

I started off at a really interesting pop-up that I’d noticed while perusing google maps – a show in town, not permanent, for an artist who I’ve enjoyed for quite some time. Banksey, arguably the most publicized graffiti artist in the world.



The exhibition was interesting. It was almost all reproductions, from what I could tell, which was disappointing… but also makes sense in retrospect. My biggest takeaway, surprisingly enough, was just how commercialized his work is. How many pieces have been sold, and just how much money’s been made by his work.

I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing, though. The final entry in the exhibition was about how he “did what all millionaires do, and bought a yacht”… but, in keeping with the irony of his work, that yacht is actually a rescue ship working to save migrants in the Mediterranean.

Doing that is a good reason to be a millionaire, I have to say.