Simone Decker – Chewing in Venice

Chewing gum art! Cool medium — and I bet that it smells fruity, but is it real?…

I would really like to know how she works with the stickiness and then, how long does it take to solidify. Are there tools involved? How much actual creation time is there between application and completion? Starting small — a bit of bazooka, perhaps, maybe I’ll start wrapping things too…. Oh but then wait — my bubble bursteth — Not only is the art 10 years old, but it’s just pictures…  Decker shot normal-size chunks of gum up very close.

According to Halogen Life, some fact checking always helps:

“You won’t see any sticky Stride blocking alleyways, because the “installation” took place 10 years ago. In a 2004 article Decker wrote for the Canadian publication Walrus Magazine (or at least, the article’s posted at their website), she says that the “bubble-gum series…was created for the Venice Biennale in 1999.” Decker wanted a big project on a small dime, so devised a simple solution. Build small but shoot large. She’d blow big (but normal big) bubbles, then place them on the street, or stretch them out and shoot very close to make the bubbles appear huge. She pulled a similar stunt with ice cubes on the streets of Paris.”

Even still, despite the controversial nature of the topic (ha ha) the photography remains art.

via BOOOOOOOM