Wrigley’s Spearmint is a very famous, well known brand all over the world. Wrapper from these gum sticks could be found on the streets of Warsaw, Moscow, Prague, Kiev, Bratislava, Bucharest and many more cities and countries. The same trash, the same identity, the same consumption habits, even the same values, because the advertisement triggers people the same way. So, just a small used package could be a marker of globalisation and show us a lot about our society: a bit outdated, but still useful because of its widespread merchandise, the logotype adjoins the signs in Kazakh language just a few millimeters lower. Such a wild mix of cultures. I think I discovered the new artistic value in a simple daily life object — a cultural code, which everyone could read, such an universal language of visual communication. Undoubtedly, simple garbage is transformed into an object of art, acquires cultural significance, becomes a monument of modernity. The original package was scanned in very high resolution, then rendered into a colourless bitmaps. That provides large scale size looks good, without loss of quality. Printing with inkjet technology gives a necessary quality and deepness to a black colour.
Digital prints (inkjet, 3 pieces 100x70cm).
Video, 1:58min, exhibited in December 2019, Gluon Art Gallery, Wroclaw.
In this project I am trying to understand how people were triggered to make a purchase. To find this out I would like to draw attention to the one particular advertisement — created in early 1990 and broadcasted in a part of the New East area in approximately 1994 – 1995 — Wrigley Spearmint chewing gum promotion video. Regarding the YouTube research, there are Russian, Polish and Czech language versions of the video. Using the original footage I have created an animation focused on the faces of actors: on the first sight we see youth, health, beauty. We see young females and males, couples laying on the beach sunbathing, having nice time on such a perfect day. Ideal smiles, wide open bright eyes, faces which could be determined as «beautiful» regarding the late 80’s – mid 90’s aesthetics standards. But going deeper with emphasis on close-up shots itself, one could observe objectivation of the woman’s body and appearance.
Watching carefully original freezes we have innocent faces with slightly open lips which were used to sexually trigger viewers, giving them the impulse of joy, desire, need of satisfaction, desire or possession. Right after that an enlarged image of products appeared. So I can suppose how the advertising algorithm works here: «buying this you will perceive all we are showing you on the screen». This is a very typical approach of late 80’s advertisement culture which looks inappropriate in 2020 after The #MeToo and third wave of Body Positivity movements were grown all over the world. My aim was to show, to make it clear how customers are manipulated by advertisements in order to establish a need for buying unnecessary products.
Scan tests, Varvara Tokareva © 2019
Here are the tests of scanning the Wrigley Spearmint wrap: it took many different attempts with distinct settings to find out the best visual quality. The shape of the object, scanner settings, post-production in Adobe PhotoShop software, — all these features affect the final result of the image.
Performance documentation (video, 1:58min, exhibited in December 2019, Gluon Art Gallery, Wroclaw).
This shot was created during the exhibition "Raw Capitalism: Wrigley (Raw Capitalism 2.0) which took place in December 2019 at the Gluon Art Gallery, Wrocław, Poland. Personal exhibition contains 5 works ("Wrigley", triptych, 100x70cm each piece; "Wrigley", diptych, 100x70cm each piece), documentary, installation. The project was a part of Nadodrze Night Festival and was curated by Malgorzata Et Ber Warlikowska, professor of Wroclaw Art Academy, head of "Graphic Expansion" printmaking studio. During the official opening people of different generations debated their own experience of the 90s in Russia, Canada, Greece, Poland, England and other countries. Opposite but still very interesting opinions were shared at a live discussion.
Original video (You Tube1995), freezes from editing process.