Do You Have Unusual Taste? Here Are 14 Highly Eccentric Annual Art Gatherings That You Might Enjoy Attending

Everyone knows about the wild and crazy art
installations that grace the annual Burning Man gathering in Black Rock City,
Nevada. A communal event that culminates in the symbolic ritual
burning of a large wooden figure, Burning Man has become a sensation
over the last 33 years, its appeal stretching beyond artists and
bohemian types to the rich and wealthy, especially Silicon Valley
magnates.

But as organizers prepare to erect the temporary community in
the arid desert northeast of Reno again this month, it’s worth
noting that there are many more wild and out-there annual art
events taking place across the globe. From body painting festivals
to sand sculpting competitions, they are a testament to the fact
that creativity knows no medium—and no bounds. Here are 14 of the
most eccentric.

Dark MOFO, Hobart, Tasmania

Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art has a
reputation for being a little dark—the collection includes a
sculpture that converts food into poop by Belgian artist
Wim Delvoye—but things get downright pagan at the annual Dark MOFO
festival. A three-week celebration of the Winter Solstice, the
event takes place after nightfall and features large-scale light
art installations, a nude swim in the River Derwent, and musical
performances (this year’s acts included FKA Twigs and Nicolas Jaar,
son of artist Alfredo Jaar, who has a major installation in the
museum’s newly completed Siloam extension). Often controversial,
the event attracted the censure of animal rights activists in 2017
for featuring Hermann Nitsch’s bloody
performance 150.action, in which the butchering
of a bull devolves into a Bacchanalian frenzy. It’s no wonder that
conspiracy theorists claim
the festival is a satanic ritual.

Volcano Extravaganza, Stromboli,
Italy

Now in its tenth year, the Volcano Extravaganza is held each
July in Stromboli, an island off the coast of Sicily. The
brainchild of Italian art collector, philanthropist, and prosciutto
heiress Nicoletta Fiorucci, the Volcano Extravaganza, hosted by the
Fiorucci Art Trust, brings international artists to the tiny
Italian island best known for its volcanic activity and black sand
beaches. This year’s recently concluded edition saw Polish artist
Maria Loboda serve as the artistic leader, drawing up a program of
atmospheric performances from Julie Béna, Federico Campagna, Anthea
Hamilton, and others, all centered around the theme of death—all the more
morbid considering that active lava flows and
eruptions killed a tourist the
day before the festival began.

Denver Chalk Festival, Denver,
Colorado

For two days each June, Denver turns over its Larimer Square to
more than 200 professional artists, who collectively transform the
space into an outdoor museum. The juried event goes on rain or
shine—this year saw the participants recreate their pieces after
not one, but two rainstorms. Chalk art festivals are popular across
Europe and the US, dating back 1973, when the town of Curtatone,
Italy, held the first Fiera delle Grazie festival to
help revive the then-dying Italian art of Madonnari (street
painting)—so named for the chalk artists who would sketch the
Madonna on sidewalks across the country.

Bombay Beach Biennial, Salton Sea,
California

Despite the name, the Bombay Beach Biennial has taken place
every year since its founding in 2015. The brainchild of hotelier
Stefan Ashkenazy, Johnson & Johnson heiress-turned-arts patron Lily
Johnson White, and filmmaker Tao Ruspoli, the immersive art
experience takes place in the tiny, 341-person town of Bombay
Beach, located on the shores of the Salton Sea, a onetime resort
destination now overrun with toxic chemicals that is rapidly drying
up. A semi-secret three-day springtime event—to keep the town from
being totally overwhelmed by crowds—the biennial has nonetheless
caught on, attracting A-list participants like graffiti artist
Kenny Scharf. Artist Greg Haberny, who has taken part since the
inaugural edition, has even relocated to Bombay Beach part-time,
turning an abandoned home into an art installation he’s dubbed the
Hermitage Museum, featuring the abstract sculptures he makes from
salvaged wood.

American Sand Sculpting Championship, Fort
Myers Beach, Florida

This November will mark the 33rd annual American Sand Sculpting
Championship, the largest of its kind in the US. Master sand
sculptors compete as pairs or single artists, and there is a speed
sculpting competition as well as public demonstrations of delicate
sand sculpting techniques. There is a separate category for
amateurs, who are also invited to create their best monumental
works in sand at the ten-day event.

Seattle Erotic Art Festival,
Seattle

Long before the Seattle Art Fair, the there was the Seattle
Erotic Art Festival, a juried show launched in 2003 by the Pan Eros
Foundation to celebrate erotic art of all varieties, from painting
and sculpture to performance and poetry. Held annually in April,
the festival’s mission is to encourage “the creation, enjoyment,
and purchase of erotic art—sparking conversations to ignite
personal and cultural evolutions.” All the work is for sale, with
prices starting at $200.

World Living Statues Festival, Arnhem, the
Netherlands

Seemingly stationary figures come to life, replete with
choreography and audience interaction at World Living Statues,
which celebrates a unique form of urban art in which performers
imitate figurative sculptures. According to the 13-year-old event’s
website, there are about 400 professional living statues around the
world, but during the biannual October festival and competition,
Arnhem “is, quite simply, the place to be for living statues!”

Pageant of the Masters, Laguna Beach,
California 

An annual production that
recreates famous paintings and sculptures from art history
in tableaux vivants, or living
pictures, the Pageant of the Masters is part of the
Laguna Beach Art Show. First held way back in 1932, it has been
referenced in
both Arrested
Development and Gilmore Girls. The
production runs for eight weeks every summer, with a 90-minute show
accompanied by narration and live music. This year, the theme is
“The Time Machine,” with recreations of works by such varied
artists as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Johannes Vermeer, Eadweard
Muybridge, Norman Rockwell, and Salvador Dalí, with Leonardo da
Vinci’s The Last Supper serving as the finale.

Wara Art Festival,
Niigata, Japan

When the rice is harvested in Niigata, Japan, there is a ton of
straw, known as wara, left over. It can be used for roofing,
livestock feed, or fertilizer, but since 2006, students from
Musashino Art University in Tokyo have been transforming some of
the excess into monumental golden
sculptures. What started with one piece became a festival two
years later, and has since grown into a massive exhibition of straw
artworks featuring giant dinosaurs, insects, and other animals,
taking place at the end of August.

FIGMENT, New York

New York’s favorite free participatory
art event just celebrated its 13th year, moving from
Governors Island to Roosevelt Island this June. The community-based
festival invites anyone and everyone participate, and is known for
its large-scale public sculpture and interactive works. About 120
artists took part in 2019, including Somewhere Studio, which
created Salvage Swings, this
year’s jury-selected City of Dreams Pavilion, an art
structure on view and open to the public all summer, not just the
two days of the festival.

Nude Art LA, Los Angeles

Nude Art LA was founded in 2018 and has already held three
editions, most recently in March. It bills itself as “the
fastest-growing and single largest nude art and performance event
in California” (who knew there was so much competition nationwide?)
and espouses “messages of racial, ethnic, cultural, and
sexual-preference and body positivity.” In addition to painting,
sculpture, photography, and other traditional art mediums, the
event also features a “Naked Fashion Show” of wearable art.

Fertility Fest, London

In 2016, after 11 rounds of unsuccessful IVF, Jessica Hepburn
founded Fertility Fest, the world’s first arts festival dedicated
to fertility. The annual event is part of a concerted effort to use
the arts and sciences together to encourage people to speak openly
about their struggles with fertility, to understand the emotional
impact of such struggles, and to educate the public about
fertility. This year’s event was
held at the Barbican in London, and featured
performances and programming tackling such challenging subjects as
miscarriage, IVF, and egg freezing.

World Bodypainting Festival, Klagenfurt,
Austria 

Billed as “a celebration of body painting and the staging of the
human body as an art object,” the World Body Painting Festival held
its 21st edition in June. Artists from some 50 nations gather to
create an open air “Bodypaint City,” populated with citizens
clad only in elaborately
painted designs and posed in staged installations. Unlike,
say, New York City’s tip-seeking
desnudas, the nudity is an afterthought with these stunning
body-painted designs, which transform ordinary people into living
canvases.

GIF FEST, Singapore

Who says a GIF can’t be a masterpiece? GIF Fest launched in 2017
with more than 90 original GIFs that spoke to the theme
“Spellbound.” It returned for four days in March 2019, this time
with over 150 works by more than 40 artists,
including British multidisciplinary artist Vince Fraser and the
French team Parallel Studio. The free festival, which aims to
present the tech-heavy medium as a form of fine art, received over
600 submissions responding to the theme of “Magic.”

The post Do You Have Unusual Taste? Here Are 14 Highly
Eccentric Annual Art Gatherings That You Might Enjoy Attending
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