Spencer Vazquez

GLUE TRAPS is on view at @baxterstccny thru June 10, 2026! Stills from a lovely walkthrough with @youngarts team and alum 🫶🏽 Baxter St at CCNY 154 Ludlow St New York, NY Hours: Tues-Sat, 12-6pm Photos by @zay.ira

My first solo show, “Glue Traps,” opens at @baxterstccny next month! Opening reception is Thursday, April 16 from 6-8pm 🤩 Saying what a work is “about” is always tricky, like trying to pluck the hairs off a photograph made from tape, and so perhaps what I want to say is that this work is really just an ode: to grief, memory, cancer, housepainters, old friends, pixels, Puerto Ricans, the hairs on your floor, and to family. Huge, huge thank you to @youngarts and the incredible team at Baxter St for this opportunity!

DEVIKA - “CHLORINE” Dir: @torimumtaz @spencevaz Prod: @torimumtaz DP: @spencevaz Editor: @spencevaz Art Director: @Devika.wav Choreo: @anshkonuru Dancers: @anshkonuru @chillmomvibin PA & Wardrobe Assist: @princessayqa @Harmony.Underground dress by @princessayqa CRTV Visualizer: @sundae.nyc LINK IN BIO So grateful for this dope team ❤️

Installation view of Glue Traps, on view now at @baxterstccny Slide 3: Sky (Jesus Toast), 2025. Masking tape transfer from mono-laser, 24 x 16” (middle) Slide 4: 5010 W. Grace St, 2026. Mono-laser print on masking tape, 25 x 33” Custom framing and pigment prints by @loupedigital Photos by @lloyd_mccullough

I am going to post so many bills

Artist Spencer Vazquez @spencevaz discusses GLUE TRAPS, his solo exhibition @baxterstccny investigating the emotional, nostalgic, and archival dimensions of photography - up through June 3 - interview by @tyler.nesler - listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or via link in bio @youngarts - shown here - “But That Would Be a Marical (Jokes) no. 2” - 2026 - Painter’s tape transfer (ScotchBlue 2090) from mono-laser print, 33 in x 41 in #interlocutorinterviews #baxterstreetcameraclub youngarts experimentalphotography

JOIN US TONIGHT at 6–8 PM for the opening of our exhibitions: 'On Broken Ground' by 2025 BAXTER ST Mid-Career Artist Hannah Smith Allen (@hannahsmithallen ), and 'Glue Traps' by 2026 YoungArts BAXTER ST Artist Spencer Vazquez (@spencevaz ). Come celebrate with us at 154 Ludlow Street! ⁠ •⁠ In 'Glue Traps,' Vazquez attempts to reckon with his own archive. Prompted by the discovery of a long-lost hard drive and the death of his father, a housepainter, Vazquez began asking how he might engage again with the sprawling photo diary he had assembled over the last decade. Faced with thousands of files—ranging from recent portraits of his father post-chemo to old family polaroids to rolls he shot as a teenager—Vazquez started contemplating the material future of these images. He sought a printing method that was at once ephemeral and tangible: a process that could get around the aesthetic and economic limitations of traditional fine art printing; and one that nodded to classic photographic conventions while also embracing the medium’s inherent contradictions. ⁠ •⁠ ⁠Hannah Smith Allen's exhibition includes a selection of still photographs, unique screen prints, collage, and a video installation shown alongside 'Borderlands', an accordion book published by Visual Studies Workshop Press in 2021. Spanning recent works along with those made during Donald Trump’s first presidency, the exhibition explores the American landscape as a site of both possibility and imposed limitations.⁠ •⁠ The exhibitions will be on view at 154 Ludlow Street through June 12, 2026. Learn more via the link in our bio! ⁠

JOIN US NEXT WEEK next Thursday, April 16, at 6–8 PM for the opening of our two exhibitions: 'On Broken Ground' by 2025 BAXTER ST Mid-Career Artist Hannah Smith Allen (@hannahsmithallen ), and 'Glue Traps' by 2026 YoungArts BAXTER ST Artist Spencer Vazquez (@spencevaz ). Come celebrate with us at 154 Ludlow Street! ⁠ •⁠ ⁠While making work about his late father, a housepainter, Spencer Vazquez began to reckon with the vastness of his collection of personal images, which included printed #photographs, digitized negatives, and countless digital files. Contemplating the future of these images, Vazquez sought a printing method that was at once #ephemeral and tangible, and one that nodded to the conventions of “classic” photography, such as gelatin silver prints behind museum glass, while also embracing the medium’s inherent contradictions. The artist began to approach photographic prints not only as images brimming with visual complexity, but as fragile, mutable objects capable of succumbing to time, wear, or the incidental debris of everyday life.⁠ •⁠ ⁠Hannah Smith Allen's exhibition includes a selection of still photographs, unique screen prints, #collage, and a video installation shown alongside 'Borderlands', an accordion book published by Visual Studies Workshop Press in 2021. Spanning recent works along with those made during Donald Trump’s first presidency, the exhibition explores the American landscape as a site of both possibility and imposed limitations.⁠ •⁠ The exhibitions will be on view at 154 Ludlow Street through June 12, 2026. Learn more via the link in our bio! ⁠

In an era when images are endlessly mediated through digital channels, 2026 BAXTER ST & YoungArts Recipient @spencevaz investigates the haptic potential of photography alongside its emotional, nostalgic and archival dimensions. Spencer’s solo exhibition, Glue Traps, opens at @baxterstccny on April 16 at 6 PM. 🔹 Calling all YoungArts alumni in NYC! Join us for an early viewing on April 16, 11 AM-12:30 PM. Visit YoungArts Post for info. Spencer Vazquez (b. 2000) is a Chicago-born artist currently based in Queens, NY. Spencer’s work explores the intersection of memory, digital media, and the everyday image. Using a range of cameras and photographic processes, his work spans documentary portraits, adhesive tape transfers, music videos, panoramic pinholes, and flatbed scans of his phone screen. He received a BA in Film & Electronic Arts from Bard College in 2022. Glue Traps is his first solo exhibition. Works by Spencer Vazquez: “But That Would Be A Marical (Jokes),” 2025; “Eye Exam (Sensational!) #1,” 2025; “Sky (Jesus Toast),” 2025.

“Glue Traps,” my debut solo show at @baxterstccny , opens in 13 days! Opening reception is Thurs, April 16 from 6-8pm. I came up with the show title a few months ago one night, almost as a joke. A few days later, I came home to find a German cockroach trapped in one of my tape prints.

That’s right, he’s #bad at shaving

Had so much fun shooting this NPR Tiny Desk submission for @sarahkhatami “Play House” by Sarah Khatami Featuring: Aliel Velez (BGVs & shaker) Sueda Polat (BGVs) Zahra Najafi (BGVs) Arisha Bagaryakova (keys & BGVs) Hans Garcia (bass) Beau Valentine (drums) Recording, mixing, and mastering engineer: Nicole Gemmiti Shot by me :)