INTERVIEW

How would you define the project that you undertook for TruckArtProject?
My project for TruckArt is a great emergency signal at many revolutions per minute. I have done two Molotov cocktails of images printed on the same reflective material that covers cars, vans and police trucks, ambulances, firemen, .... This yellow and red material is inevitably linked to the idea of emergency, which is still a disaster situation. I have been working with catastrophe images for some time as one of the great entertainments of contemporary masses and their loss of meaning added to the desensitization of the viewer in front of them. The truck changes completely in the dark, reflecting the light projected onto the material on which the collages have been printed, acquiring a great luminous intensity. Being such a large surface creates an effect of phantasmagoria and unreality, even dreamlike. It seems great how extremely different is the truck with daylight and artificial, when "active."

In your case, how do the two sides of the truck work together?
The two sides of the truck operate independently but are like the wheels of the truck: they all push in the same direction. On both sides a vomit of images found on the internet related to the concept of "catastrophe" printed in black on reflective yellow on one side and red on yellow on the other has been printed. In this second, the word "MORIREMOS" appears also in reflective red that vibrates very much when reflecting the light. At first I thought of putting "I WILL" so that the spectator read it in first personnel but it seemed to me that it did not do great favor to the driver of the truck and I changed it. We all know that we are going to die but we are very uncomfortable thinking about it. On both sides many flies appear that refers to the Flemish paintings and that memento mori which means "Remember that you can die", relating to the phrase that appears on one of the faces of the truck.

What are the challenges of the project for you?
The main challenge of the project is the container itself and the fact of being in motion. The spectator and the surprise factor of meeting the work without looking for it or waiting for it is important as well. I did not understand the project as two flat images to put on the faces of the truck but the truck itself and its use as a whole. It is not only important the truck but the space where it circulates.

How does this project fit into your trajectory and your discourse?
I often work with sculpture and installation, where the place to intervene is often the starting point for the work to be developed. The fact that this space is the streets or roads and that the support is a truck is already a challenge in itself. I was delighted that Fer Frances, the project commissioner, invited me to join Truck Project because I am not a painter and I do Street art (like most of the other artists who have participated in the project) and I hope I have contributed a bit Diversity to this adventure.

Some artists admit that they came in with a pre-existing idea that they had to modify, or that grew in other directions when faced with a canvas like this one. Was that the case for you?
I always modify the starting ideas during the process of carrying out the works. The opposite seems to me a failure and quite boring. If the finished work is equal to the imagined it is not necessary to do it because it is already in your head. It seems to me very important to be open to these changes because it is in that process where I most enjoy my work. This is something that takes one and is what really makes sense to this profession.

How did you approach the reception of a work like this, in which the spectator comes across it instead of seeking it out, and which doesn’t “circulate” through the usual art channels?
The best of life comes by surprise. Much of the strength of this project is the decontextualization of the work of art, emerging from traditional art sanctuaries and cemeteries.

What about the fleeting nature with which it’s received?
At the moment the art is coming out of the exhibition hall, galleries and museums and this means that the spectator is not sure if it is art or not what he sees. It really does not matter either because that sense of doubt or strangeness is good, whether it's a work of art, a circus poster or both at once. I imagine it must generate some uncertainty and strangeness going to work and crossing you with a truck full of images and reading "we will die", dry. At night this strangeness is accentuated because the truck shines, it is almost a moving ghost. It does not advertise anything, there is no brand, there is no product. It only reminds us of something we already know.

How did you approach the scale? Were you used to it?
I've never feared large-format

What does this type of project offer you, and what do you think you bring to the project?
This project has given me the opportunity to remove the leash from one of my works, let it leave the workshop and run through the streets without stepping on any of the spaces where I usually present my works. And above all, it has given me a lot of pleasure.

Why is a project like TruckArtProject interesting?
Truck Art Project is a quite round project because it breaks the barriers of the artwork, the limits of the frame, the space where to see art, the static of contemplation, the spectator that enters a museum conditioned by what it means, the To know that behind your work there is no wall but a pallet of bottles of whiskey or cans of olives, the appearance of people like Jaime Colsa who bet on an adventure like this, inviting artists to do something they do not usually do, Change the gallerist or caretaker of the exhibition hall by a truck driver, which is an itinerant exhibition that changes location every minute, that you stumble with works without looking ... and that when you step on an accelerator you put all this in motion !!!

Javier Díaz-Guardiola