Published in the Lola, 1998

"New art gallery exhibit something to chew on” by Heidi Bergstrom, Curator/Director, Durham Art Gallery Published in the Durham Chronicle, Wednesday, May 15, 1996

On May 9, 1996 “Juicy Fruit", curated by John Massier of the Koffler Centre in Toronto opens at the Durham Art Gallery. The story of how he came to curate this show is intriguing. One recognizes the sought after element of pure spontaneity after chewing over the images and savoring their different points of view which takes a little longer than say, the time it takes to chew a piece of Juicy Fruit until all the flavor is gone... Luckily we'll have close to a month and it will be a show that people bring their friends to visit more than once.

Massier came to the idea of Juicy Fruit slowly on the Dufferin 29, bus in Toronto. After many days of repeatedly contemplating a Juicy Fruit ad depicting a humming bird thinking about Juicy Fruit with the trademark caption underneath "TASTE THAT STICKS OUT” Now available in sugar free", he realized he wasn't tired of the image. “I noticed myself still looking at it. Amid the sometimes intolerable visual clutter of bus and streetcar ads I remained fixated and, despite the number of times I saw it, never bore3d.” Thus was born the desire of a visual response to the image.

Massier showed the image to twelve different artists which included Fastwurms TM, Anda Kubis, Nicole Collins, John Armstrong, Sadko Hadzihasonovic, Lorna Mills, Pat McDermott, Duane Nickerson, Oliver Girling, Gretchen Sankey, Jerry Campbell and Eric Glavin, and asked for that response. The only limitation was in dimension but otherwise the artists were free to do what they liked. The resulting exhibition provides a kind of compendium to the range of responses to the first image the artists were presented with. The dark “Homage to Hannah Wilke” by Girling contemplates the memory of this performance artist and sculptor who at times would actually affix gum to her body during some performances. The more graphically referential “Juicy Juicy” by Anda Kubis depicts the humming bird’s thought bubble on a trademark yellow background. As Massier writes “No two artists…are looking in quite the same direction. While paths may cross, with tangents briefly shared, each of the participating artists provided individual responses…”

The exhibition is strongly united by Eric Glavin’s “ 7“ Security Strip-Yellow” which runs the circuit of the space and is painted directly on the gallery walls at the same height as a bus ad. The strip contains elements of the Juicy Fruit gum logo and design elements from Metro Works buses. At first it is tempting to draw comparisons or perhaps even negate the show by targeting it as a retro kind of Pop Art. On the other hand, for the purists it may even appear as a form of co-option that the artists have participated in the creation of work which smacks loudly of a kind of commercial/corporate devouring of painters.

Traditionally it is the commercial world of graphics, which plunders fine art images for their own use, and now it seems we have the reverse. Tusche! But, do we really? It would seem rather that these artists (as all artists), are simply doing as artists do: using a starting point for a focused dialogue. As Massier advises, one must leave off high notions and just take pleasure in the work which is “..Seeking to critique nothing, particularly the predictable rant of advertising as the art of corporate evil, and exalt nothing, especially painting, which goes through death throes and resurrections more than Jason Vorhees..”

The show runs through to June 9, 1996 at the Durham Art Gallery with a reception on Saturday June 18th at 12pm where the Curator and some of the artists will be present. The Durham Art Gallery is grateful to the Koffler arts Centre for making this exhibition possible. Juicy Fruit is a registered trademark of Wrigley Canada Inc. The exhibition has been generously supported by the Exhibitions assistance Program of the Canada Council and Wrigley Canada Inc. Hours are Wednesday 9am-8pm, Th/Fri 9am-5pm and Sat/Sun 10am-4pm. Call 369-3692 for more information.