Gum. Is there anything it can’t do?* Maurizio Savini is an Italian artist, and has created an almost unsettling series of staggering gum sculptures. Not only are they huge in terms of size, but the sheer degree of pedantic minutia is exhilrating. To get a more thorough idea of the premise behind these (in particular, the delicious gum-bear pictured above), here’s an excerpt from a review of the exhibit, taken from Pastificio Cerere.
The sensual act of chewing, the voluptuous warmth of rebelling saliva, the artificial and secretly aseptic fragrance which spreads from the mouth as a promise and missed kiss. The synthetic fleshliness of the pink color, the obsessive square shape of the product unwrapped and ready to be shred to pieces by the power of the tongue, all compete in crashing on the senses. Applying all this to the power and energy of the Sculpture and its history causes a short circuit having the capacity of turning the ludic into stately and vice versa. The strict minimalism of parallelepiped is subverted by the uniform coating with many bars of chewing-gum completely cover it, rendering chewable to desire, soft and provoking to forbidden touch, what was abstract and distant.
Great. Now I don’t know whether I want to eat the bear, or have sex with it.
I always had issues with gum, ever since I caught a relative of mine eating it off some stairs near my house. True story. Also, people kept insisting that by swallowing it i’d have a hunk of rubber in my stomach for ten years, which would, I don’t know, affect my grades and render me infertile. What the fuck did I care? Oh, incidentally, the muscular motions involved in digestion and the acids which coat your stomach wall make this old wives tale clear for what it is: total fucking bullshit. Swallow away. I did some digging, though, and it turns out that gum advertisements are either totally inane, or are the best way to trip balls. Observe.
You see? Mental. It’s ads like that which are likely to blame for my relative and his filthy gum/stair habit, and which have shaped me into the twisted berk I am today. And yes, I said berk. I was leafing through The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole a day or so ago, and am still trying to wash off the Thatcher-era working class British-isms. Fuck you, Thatcher. I hope you swallow some gum and die from a bowel obstruction. If only that were biologically possible.
/Paul
(Link via Fabrikproject)
*There are literally billions of things gum cannot do. Sorry kids.
6 responses so far ↓
1 luke // Jun 4, 2009 at 12:26 pm
gum bears: they hibernate in your colon
2 hel // Jun 4, 2009 at 12:30 pm
So basically bubblicious is both badly spelt/spelled (dammit that word always trips up pedantic spelling observations), and kidnaps children.
Nothing wrong with working class british-isms. Pillock.
3 Xoe // Jun 4, 2009 at 1:18 pm
i have a sudden urge to get some bubble gum….and fly into outerspace
4 beckoning_ // Jun 4, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Whoa, that review was like a Mills and Boon! I wonder if that gum bear is single…?
5 Aqualec // Jun 4, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I actually have a friend who still believes all those wives tales bout gum. The Poor Sod….
6 canada goose jakke billige // Dec 16, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Interesting write-up. Sure that I’ll come back here. Good function.
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