Spidertag continues his mission of interpolating neon in public and private spaces around the world, this time conjuring his “Interactive Immersive Neon Space #1 -IINS#1”, which appears at the cultural space/café/bistro Amasada in Timisoara, Romania.
“I did this project trying to take all the power of my neons and the good vibes and energy of my symbols and signs to create a space full of colors and hope,” he says.
Saturday is a great day to spend indoors at a video arcade, right?
If arcades had interactive installations like this new one from SpiderTag, it would be packed. Unfortunately Covid-19, people can’t get packed into the Peinture Fraiche Festival in Lyon, France.
The festival features 50 French and international artists at La Halle Debourg operating loosely under the theme of innovation in urban art as a concept. Here we see the Spidertags new installation while he continues his explorations with Neon, transforming and mediating the thick dark night. He calls this his Interactive Neon Mural #10.
Slowly the world is opening up, one little step at a time. We hope.
Essential services and workers never shutdown, people who were on the frontlines of the Pandemic, making certain we have emergency medical attention, electricity, food on the table, running water, trash collection, and a secured environment in our homes and outside deserve our gratitude for many years to come. Most countries have set up phases for reopening with the goal of returning to a normal life, or at least a semblance of it.
Among the many sectors of our society that are hit by Covid and vulture economics, the art community was among the most affected; many artists the last to return to their practice, or losing their spaces. In fact, in many countries, the arts and entertainment are still in lockdown. It’s especially gratifying for us to see our peers getting up and making art after months of not being able to do what they love the most.
Today we have a familiar glowing face on the pages of BSA. Spider Tag who tells us that after months of not being able to even go to his studio finally he has something new up for the Take Tomorrow Back Festival in Söderhamn, Sweden to celebrate the cities 400th anniversary. His work has evolved from using yarn to cable to neon with his illuminated pieces now being interactive as is the case of his new creation Neon Mural #9 (INM#9).
It’s good to see artists stretch themselves creatively, going outside of their comfort zone, hopefully, and discovering new techniques and approaches to their art.
“You cannot stay at the same level as when you first practiced your truth, life won’t let you.”
~ Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth
Spanish Street Artist Spider Tag has appeared here on BSA for many years constructing his outside constellations in abandoned buildings and community gardens and elsewhere with nails and yarn. If you didn’t see the geometric shapes there on intersecting planes before, he was willing to demarcate their dimensions with bright red lines for your benefit.
Recently in a new modern neighborhood of Malmö, Sweden called Västra Hamnen, Spidertag decided to use a curiously amenable neon cable material to try out a new public installation. He says the total exhibition lasted about 30 minutes, until the battery died, but it was a successful experiment he is eager to expand upon. “I used nails, a hammer and 50 metres of neon cable,” he says, “I thought it was a perfect spot with the buildings in the horizon.”
We asked Spider Tag about this new direction and about his practice as an artist working in public space and he reveals that it is not always easy to make a change with your art:
BSA: What inspired you to take this new direction into the darkness?
Spidertag: From 2008 to 2015 I was using yarn and exploring different directions, from geometric, abstract or minimalism in the urban environment and in countryside, taking video documentation and short film. I felt that I had to change the yarn. Even though many people told me that it was a mistake for me to change my art practice because people recognize me for a certain style or practice, I didn´t care. For more than a year I jumped into a bad period in which I didn´t find a solution. It was a scary moment, because I thought that I was losing my sense of direction.
I tried with metal and other materials, but didn’t like the result. And as in a superhero´s classic comic book, by luck or by mistake, I discovered the neon cable. Eureka! Since that moment, I’ve been exploring the use of the light with other materials -hammer, nails and paint- that I´ve used since the beginning of my career. The cool thing for me is that this new material has the same flexible use, but it’s more unique. It is also new and modern in the Street Arts movement.
I had experimented with black lights and yarn back in 2012 in the Alps and in Madrid. So, this is a continuation but with a new power.
BSA: Do you discover shapes and geometric relationships as you are creating the piece, or do you have the composition diagrammed out in your head before you begin?
Spider Tag: I work with the space. That´s the key in street art, especially when you do illegal work or without permission, because you choose the place. In my case I choose it because the surface, the material, inspire me. I work with sketches and also improvise, but it’s the personal background, the ideas that you look forward to realize and the open eyes to found the perfect place that I follow as a patron…”
BSA: Sometimes when we see your work, we realize that you are outlining shapes that already exist but we couldn’t see them before.
Spidertag: I walk the streets scanning the surfaces with my mind. There are straight lines everywhere, abandoned spots that are perfect for what I want to do. And when you find these, half of your work is done…
BSA: Have you an interest in creating text or perhaps figures or recognizable icons?
Spider Tag: Yes, but it’s not my field…
BSA: What do you like the most about creating your art in public space?
Spidertag: I enjoy the exploring the moment, walking or being on the bike or skating. And now, also the magical moment when I press the button and the darkness changes with the lights…
Doors, windows, shipping pallets, nails, yarn. These are the humble materials that Spidertag uses in his geometric abstractions, commingling handmade craft traditions, mid-century modernism, and the history of commercial graphic sign painting.
SECUENCIAS MÍNIMAS is his new Madrid solo show just opened with 23 works that include sculptural wallhangings, video, lights, logs, and a generous amount of fire engine red.
The Street Artist has been pounding nails into the walls of community gardens, winding small streets, and abandoned old houses and factories for nearly a decade, each time responding to the environment with his materials and geometry based compositions in new ways to create one of a kind installations. By retaining that ability to be resourceful on the spot, Spidertag knows how to transform many angles of the gallery effectively and without pretension.
The new show at Swinton Gallery presents Spidertag’s facination for experimentation and the simplicity of form, dimension, and materials – often with a touch of levity. Choices of color, shape, and placement in the gallery environment are wry and unassuming, reminding the viewer that the creative spirit can be simultaneously challenging and rewarding while remaining disarmingly simple.
Spider Tag Secuencias Minimas is currently on view at Swinton Gallery in Madrid, Spain. Click HERE for more information.
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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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This is the harvest season when all the fruits of Street Artists labor are on display for everyone to admire – and just before the frost transforms all the leaves and turns the grass brown and your cheeks red, it is time for you to go outside with your camera. There is a new talented crop of artists on the street that has been maturing these last few seasons and of course there are the perennials on display as well. New York in the autumn is always dramatic; the perfect stage to unveil new productions, new art shows, new movies, new musical compositions, and new standards being set. If the pickings for this weeks BSA Images of the Week are an indication, Autumn is at full peak right now, pure splendor.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Billi Kid, City Kitty, City Rabbit, Danielle Mastrion, Dee Dee, Elbow-Toe, Ernest Zacharevic, Hiss, Kai, Myth, Olek, Phoebe New York, Pixote, Sean9Lugo, Spider Tag, Tom Fruin, Tony De Pew, WK Interact, and You Go Girl!
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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. “SOMOS LUZ” – Boa Mistura in Panamá City
2. Giulio Vesprini by Alessandro Moglie
3. Ox Alien x Spider Tag in Rotterdam
4. Borondo in Rome with some Piety from The Blind Eye Factory
We start off the BSA Film Friday for 2014 with a newly released story about the majority.
That is, the poor. Somehow despite the miracles and wealth and technological breakthroughs of the modern age we have allowed the majority of our brothers and sisters and neighbors around the globe to live in harsher conditions and mounting insecurity.
Madrid-based Street Art quartet Boa Mistura created a project they call SOMOS LUZ when they created a transformative piece of art taking over an entire housing project building in Panamá City. Their short documentary is a thoughtful examination that features daily scenes, observations on the political climate, the militarization of life, crime, the brutal cost of daily life.
As any mature artist will likely tell you, the work doesn’t resound so deeply until you have some skin in the game, and Boa Mistura make a serious study to learn from the people in El Chorrillo whose 50 homes they paint.
In the process, they bring a lot to light.
While painting a mural in Montegranaro for an event called Casa Museo, artist Giulio Vesprini was happy to have some musical accompaniment. Also, some interpretive dance to keep spirits high.
With only six hours to spend in Rotterdam, Spidertag met up with Ox in December to do three collaborative works despite an ongoing spate of rain. The geometric interventions balance the styles of the two Street Artists, each preferring to let the lines do the talking.
Two languid figures in repose are made from deliberate and raw impressionist swaths, relaxing in one anothers’ company across a large wall in composition entitled “Piedad”. See how Barondo moves along and defines the figures on this wall for the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz, and cross yourself.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
