OUR HISTORY & VISION
An idea born in the legendary resort of sunny Crans Montana known for its history of being the first Swiss ski school, home to the Omega European Golf Masters, its vistas and its natural beauty, we bring you Urban Arts at 1500m- 3000m. Europe’s highest open air urban / contemporary art museum.
Founded by Gregory Pages in 2015 in participation with Crans Montana Absolutely, our aim and slogan is « Taking Urban Art To New Heights ». We are not your regular art festival, voted by High snobiety as ”one of the eight best cities for graffiti that are off the beaten path”.
A one-of-a-kind blend between nature and art in the astonishing Swiss Alps.
It all began with the founder's simple question.: Why not ask artists to express themselves on the bleak grey concrete surfaces of cable car stations, parking lots and other various empty and abandoned walls?
Year-round Crans Montana has inspired writers, painters and musicians dating back to the 18th century due to its tranquility and beauty.
Created in 2015, Vision Art Festival has seen 4 editions and the creation of more than 63 murals by international artists.
WE ARE VISION ART FESTIVAL!
Edition 2018 took place from August 17 to 26.
SERVAL (SWITZERLAND) https://www.instagram.com/serval77
« Study After Ferdinand Hodler »
The inspiration for this mural is based on the famous painting by Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler, « L’étang long » painted in 1913 in Montana, somehow a tribute to the artist for the centenary of his death.
As an illustrator, Serval has been painting since the beginning of the nineties. From his very beginning he was dedicated to make his own way, concentrating on throw-ups and tags, before strarting larger pieces. A great fan of comics, Serval chose his name as a tribute to Wolverine, the fiction charater of Uncanny X-Men, choosing the french version.
He spent some time in Australia,and following his roots, he is very much influenced by American cartoons of the ‘50s – Tex Avery or older like Popey or Betty Boop., appreciating their appealing esthetic. Far from copying other artists Serval created his own characters and a very personnal signature, typical in the graphism of his style , his lettering, his way of life and his dancing in a constant search for evolution. Serval lives and works in Geneva.
JULIEN NONNON (FRANCE) https://www.instagram.com/juliennonnon
Julien Nonnon is one of the leading figures in this emerging new media amid the Street Art scene called « Street Mapping ». Inviting him to attend this year’s edition introduces a brand new dimension to the festival and will definitively be the first time Nonnon has been working a this height. As artist and founding member of the creative studio Le3, Julien Nonnons’ work focuses on the interaction between architecture and the urban elements surrounding him. This approach has led him to numerous artistic projects where Street Art, cine-tech installations, digital creations and Mapping are acting together.
A new means of expression in Street Art, video Mapping is a projection of film sequences on city walls or buildings. Fascinating and ephemeral works, they leave no traces and thus can be projected even on historical land marks. The artist has created new images for this festival and will return during the winter to project on the snow in Crans Montana.
MANTRA (FRANCE) https://www.instagram.com/mantrarea « La Collection du Valais »
Renowned Street artist Mantra, stands out for his incredible speed of execution and his gigantic works of breathtaking reality, full of poetry. « La Collection du Valais » was painted subsequent to an old butterfly box, found in random flea markets by his father and given to him shortly before coming to Crans-Montana.
Born 1987, Mantra is an autodidact artist. Having, as a child, spent, an equal amount of time in the countryside as well as in the city, he finds himself prone to combine the two. This is achieved by painting, i.e. butterflies or owls, in a surrealistic manner on concrete city structures meshing his two childhood lifestyles. His colossal murals of insects or animals are often surrounded by a dark frame similar to a natural taxidermy box a collector would have at home.
Mantra’s amazing technique enables him to repeat the same pattern while changing the scale. Beyond the decorative aspect it is also a symbolic element. In the iconography of art, the butterfly is the visual representation of the soul rising to the sky or a symbol of resurrection following the metamorphosis of the chrysalis to butterfly. It is also a symbol of fragility.
Mantra has very often been commissioned by cities to give a new face to certain districts.
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TOM BOB (USA) https://www.instagram.com/tombobnyc
New York based Street artist, Tom Bob conquers the streets with his original way of tackling preexisting street structures such as fire hydrants, manhole covers and street signs. The Marcel Duchamp of street art if you will, giving soul to ready made objects in the street. Tom Bob refuses to simply live in this boring world, instead he has decided to reshape it by cleverly personalizing his surroundings with colorful, happy, playful, vivid and surprising characters, challenging the viewer to stop and smile!
Titles: « Vinnie The Frog » « Greg The Seal » « Are You Ready To Take The Leap »
JASM ONE (SWITZERLAND-TUNISIA) https://www.instagram.com/jasm_one
« Shaken, Not Stirred »
Appearing again at this year’s edition, JASM ONE has dedicated his mural to the most prominent resident of Crans Montana: Sir Roger Moore .
Born 1983 in Geneva, Switzerland to a Swiss mother and a Tunesian father, Issam Rezgui grew up in Valais in the little city of Sion. Issam is a workaholic acting as communication designer and project managment and multidisciplinary artist active in the contemporary art scene as well as in the streets. Also known as JASM ONE (insta: @jasm_one) over the Swiss boarder, Issam is a major figure of the swiss Street and Urban Art scene, not only for his work but also for outstanding projects and has been active since 1998.
Issam Rezgui founded the graffiti network Collectif 21 in his home town Sion, putting together 3000 square meters of available walls. His work reflects very much his double culture and his profound attachment to his roots. He lives and works in Lausanne but is constantly traveling between Geneva, Lausanne and the canton of Valais for various big projects.
ABRAHAM OSORIO (EL SALVADOR) https://www.instagram.com/abraham.o1/
« Cicatrices de la vida » Scars of Life
Hailing from Santa Ana, El Salvador and having studied at the Centro Nacional de Artes. Abraham Osorio found his medium about five years ago, spray paint and walls. Through his rapid development and his swift yet tidy work ethic, Abraham provides us with impressive photorealistic murals. His portraits represent the essence of the human soul and its various conditions.
Abraham, uses his astonishing talent and tropical style to break boundaries as an ambassador of Latin American culture, confirming that art is one of the main keys of this utopia that we called humanism.
His participation during the Vision Art Festival made him the main subject of a short film by, Jonathan Granger/Lakeside Media for La Résidence Crans Montana. The film is titled “Abraham”
YGREK ONER (SWITZERLAND) https://www.instagram.com/_ygrek1_/
A new artist and technique added to this years edition is YGREK ONER. Leaving his mark on a fence set at 2600 meters (Bellalui), YGREK uses tape and/or rope to create visual designs. This technique allows him to circumvent legal issues that other street artists have to encounter, as his work can be removed without damage versus paint on walls.
Since the late 90's, YGREK has gradually conquered the Geneva urban-scape as a graffiti writer, turning walls into canvas for his typographic art.
After earning a Master's degree in space design, eager to challenge the eye and the mind, his passion for fonts and graffiti broadened into pixel styled lettering and optical effects, using tape or thread on public mesh fences. Nothing stands in the way of YGREK's curiosity as he keeps exploring further past ordinary limits. Dull metal grids become ephemeral screens, playfully revealing contrast and depth, to the attentive bystander.
A casual jump over the wall and into a legal loophole, his spontaneous fancy signatures can be spotted in various cities throughout the world, from Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Milan, Lisbon, Dublin, Lyon, Zurich... to the Canary Islands, Montreal and Quebec City.
TONES ONE (SWITZERLAND) https://www.instagram.com/tonesrock/ « Swing » Born in Geneva, Switzerland and immersed in the graffiti milieu since 2000, TONES grew up as a writer within the EDK & DVS crew, directly inspired by the traditional New York style.
A funky technician of the letter & committed disciple of style, his specificity is to make his letters dance through connections, funk and flow while respecting the codes of the New York school of graffiti. Another specific feature of his work is to brighten letters up by fusing comic book illustrations, with use of vibrant colors.
His main inspiration is his crew’s homeboys – Rey, Hews, Sneke in particular – as well as the legends of the New York graffiti such as Skeme, West, Doze and many more. Tones’s style has evolved over time through encounters with representatives of the milieu during several travels abroad and his participation in graffiti festivals. His approach to graffiti has driven him to express himself mainly in the street, following the underground spirit of this medium. JASM ONE X FERDINAND HODLER https://www.instagram.com/jasm_one Inspired by pieces painted by renowned Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler completed in 1913 in Crans Montana. An homage to the artist for the centennial of his passing. JASM ONE pays tribute and paints the same view Hodler painted around 1913 when he was visiting Crans Montana. His choices were the renown pieces, «L’étang long» and «Landscape of Montana with the view of the Becs de Bosson ».
Perched at 1700m in the mountain pastures amongst the cows, with a printed copy of the paintings in one hand, a spray can in the other and the same view of Holder’s landscape, JASM ONE painted three large panels. Painting in a style inspired by various social media, (twitter, facebook , Instagram) the pieces are to be viewed as enlarged post of afore mentioned social media platforms. The symbolism, in the artists view, is the vulgarization of culture where millennials communicate solely through these platforms, exchanging information without seeing with their own eyes and buying into whatever is posted.
SYLVIE FLEURY (SWITZERLAND) https://www.instagram.com/fleury49000/
An artist that needs no introduction, winner of the “Meret Oppenheim Price 2018”, Sylvie Fleury, honored us with of an installation for the fourth edition of the Vision Art festival, in the form of 3 polychromic flags that fly over the island in the center of Lake Grenon.
Each flag or "soft sculptures" feature a rising feminine fist.
The artist’s only request was that the flags be hoisted by the opposite gender. So we used two performers from the Cirque au Sommet and a local ski instructor.
Three very fit and good-looking chaps supporting the feminist revolution hoisting the flags whilst inviting us to unite in order to reach equal rights. What else would you expect from the Vision Art Festival.
BATTLE OF STYLES
Winners SPHER https://www.instagram.com/spher/ & Boris https://www.instagram.com/borischiaradia/
CONTACTS
President: Vice-president : Press Gregory Pagès Vincent Edmond Louis Mandana Pagès [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
+41799696842 +41789743425 +41767422784
Photo credits © Sam Norval, Julie Strasser, Arnaud Delauno, Ronald Weaver
Cover : Jo Vargas
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