Dutch artist Max Zorn has turned to using packaging tape rather than paint for his creations. The key however to viewing his works is backlighting.
Original video file: https://www.dw.com/en/tape-art/video-15910569
Aired on Deutsche Welle News, Euromaxx, on 26.04.2012
Transcript:
Max Zorn’s Tape Art needs light to reveal its full effect. The artist sets off under cover of night. His favorite places to hang his pictures are the street lamps of his home city, Amsterdam.
Max works under his real name but doesn’t want to be seen doing so, because legally his art activities can be regarded as property damage.
Max Zorn: “For me, it’s a way to leave like a fingerprint on a location I really enjoy or really like. It’s like other people leave their marks in a tree or something like that. I just kind of hang up this stuff and as you can see in the night, it’s just looking really, really nice.”
Max Zorn uses nothing but ordinary packing tape.
He tapes layer after layer of it on a pane of plexiglass and then cuts each layer into shape, turning everyday objects into art.
Max Zorn: “Tape seems to be a very unusual medium for art, but it has its really awesome effects once you combine it with light actually. So as you can see with the light in the background, the different layers of the tape create like a crazy kind of depth you can work with.”
Max Zorn hangs his pictures all over Amsterdam, especially in front of his studio. All he needs to work is a window and light. He began experimenting with packing tape a year ago.
So far he has created about 150 works, from small stickers to large format pieces.
Max Zorn: “Well, as you can see the light is very important. Without the light, this is just plexiglass with like brown crap on it, and only if you lift it up and you have some lighting in the back, the tape actually unfolds its magic.”
Max never studied art. He discovered the effects of light through the strips of tape by accident and noticed that the sepia color suits his favorite motifs.
Max Zorn: “Well, I was always fascinated more by like writers from the ‘Lost Generation’ like Hemingway or Steinbeck or Salinger, for example, and the way they sketch their characters, like these broken characters which dance on the thin line between glamour and fame and downfall on the other side.”
Max Zorn’s pictures can now be spotted on the streets of many European cities. In the meantime, galleries and collectors have taken note. Today some pay up to 2500 for his large format pictures.
Max Zorn: “I just play it by ear at the moment and I don’t want to think of like a five-year plan or something, but just go with the flow in a way. And what I’d like to do is just continuing traveling and meeting people and collaborating with other artists, and just enjoying this moment of doing what I just love to do.”
Max Zorn likes to work on the street, but he’s media savvy too. On the internet he has called on people to post his stickers on lamp posts all over the world.
Max Zorn: “This is one good example of the stickers I sent out for free to applicants from all around the world. So that way I can spread my street art, and people have the freedom to stick it up on street lamps all around the world, let’s say Hawaii, LA, Argentina, Japan, wherever people apply from.”
Max Zorn is currently preparing for next month’s annual Hong Kong Arts Festival. He hopes he can make his art stick there as well.
Original video file: https://www.dw.com/en/tape-art/video-15910569
Aired on Deutsche Welle News, Euromaxx, on 26.04.2012