Giant Spiders
Tuesday, 2nd December 2008 by Ian Brown
Caution arachnophobes, many parts of the world appear to be home to giant spiders, thankfully all in the name of art.
First up, a giant bug on top of a building in Reno, Nevada.
This spider sculpture was created by artist David Fambrough. It consists of the body of a VW beetle / bug (depending where you live) with huge metal legs. Some people wanted to squash the impressive looking bug, but it has been granted a reprieve and will instead be moved to another part of the city.
Controversy can also surround the bronze or steel casts of Louise Bourgeois' sculpture Maman, which can currently be found in 8 different location worldwide. In my home town, Ottawa, there's a 10m tall Maman which cost $3.2millionCAD, though it quickly became a popular local icon.
Maman can also be found outside art galleries in Bilbao, Tokyo and Seoul.
In Kansas City Maman isn't visible on Google Maps, but Street View reveals that she is happily menacing two women and a (doubtless quite traumatised) baby in a stroller.
Maman also lives in St Petersburg, Paris and Havana, but I can't track her down on Google Maps or Google Earth. Let me know if you can!
Finally, giant spiders must spin giant webs ... like this one in Colorado, which appears to be at least a couple of hundred metres wide.
Thanks to Steve and Bleij.
About the author
Ian Brown lives in Ottawa, Canada, and spends his spare time perusing maps to find new routes to ride on his orange bicycle.
There’s also a cast of Louise Bourgeois’s Crouching Spider on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. (Satellite view show the previous art installation there, though.)
@Melissa Unfortunately the spider in San Francisco is being/has been dismantled and sent back to its owner.
There’s also a Maman in Ottawa Canada
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=45.429114,-75.69674&z=18
John – that’s the first one mentioned and pictured in my post.
The one in Havanna is, if I recall correctly, located in the broad passage way in the middle of this map. However, the resolution is not good enough to actually see it.
View Placemark
The Paris Maman definitely isn’t shown where it was in March – maybe it was only there temporarily?
You can’t forget about Providence’s big blue bug (not really a spider, but really creepy when you are driving on I-95.)
View Placemark,,0,7.698815999207017
Street view is good. Satellite view is horrible.
I didn’t find it THAT scary at first sure like 2 seconds of i got over it.
Can anyone find the Nazca lines spider? Somewhere around here
There Is another Large VW Spider off Indian trail rd. in Palm Springs Ca. Area I do not know if it was created by David Fambrough.
Here is the msn view of the vw spider in California near the dinosaurs
Satellite view is useless but serte view is WAY better (and crepy) so i’d say this is great