{"id":87356,"date":"2024-09-28T11:17:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T18:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=87356"},"modified":"2024-10-02T12:04:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T19:04:55","slug":"sticky-selfies-provos-gumbug-and-the-art-of-a-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sticky-selfies-provos-gumbug-and-the-art-of-a-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Sticky Selfies: Provo’s #gumbug and the Art of a Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Brightly

Smock & Roll’s “Shoot Out” mural and the #gumbug are located at 283 N University Ave, Provo.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The first question you may ask yourself is, Why? Why stick a piece of chewed bubble gum onto a brightly-painted Volkswagen Bug in downtown Provo, Utah? Surely, not to be transgressive: the owners have encouraged you to. Nor likely out of necessity\u2014that is, a big wad of gum constantly in your mouth needing a place to go: sales of chewing gum have gone down drastically in the United States (\u201cGum\u2019s bubble burst during the COVID-19 pandemic, when\u00a0masks and social distancing<\/span>\u00a0made bad breath less of a worry and fewer people spent on\u00a0impulse buys<\/span>,” the AP has reported). The project\u2019s sponsors have helpfully provided bubble gum dispensers near the car. So, then, do you do it to be trendy? Because, it\u2019s the thing you do<\/em>?<\/h4>\n

The #gumbug, as it\u2019s called, debuted last fall in a parking lot on the corner of 300 East and University Ave. in downtown Provo. First, the property owners commissioned Smock & Roll<\/a> (aka Caroline Kane and Alli VanKleeck) to create a mural celebrating the businesses on the block. “[They] wanted to turn their parking lot block … into a family-friendly, interactive, outdoor art gallery for all to enjoy,\u201d the artists say on their website. The mural, which replaced an earlier tribute to Polynesian culture, highlights a western theme in line with nearby attractions such as a shootout game room and western-themed restaurants. To spice things up\u2014after all, Provo has lots of murals, but no gum-covered automobiles\u2014the property owners incorporated #gumbug into the brightly colored aesthetic.<\/h4>\n

Much like the mural craze, #gumbug taps into an Instagram-friendly trend that pulls people in for selfies. These days, tourists in Paris are just as likely to visit The Wall of Love as they are to go inside Sacr\u00e9-C\u0153ur.\u00a0 A splash of color, something quirky and photogenic: take a shot, then move on. No need for context or history. You can call these photoops contemporary art pieces and many do; and as a reflection of contemporary society they are probably more accurate than anything you’ll find in the museum. In a way, they feel reminiscent of roadside attractions you used to find in the Midwest, like the “world\u2019s largest ball of yarn”: a mix of curiosity and kitsch.<\/h4>\n

One suspects #gumbug was inspired, at least in part, by Seattle\u2019s famous Gum Wall. Located in Pike Place Market, the Gum Wall began in the early ’90s when local patrons and performers at the Market Theatre stuck their used gum on the brick walls. One story goes that the first person implanted a penny in the gum, and others followed suit, adding cigarette butts, notes, and artwork. Pre-cellphone there wasn’t much to do outside a theatre but wait, and maybe talk; chewing gum passed the time. The trend grew, despite efforts to stall it, until it became a symbol of a community. \u00a0By the late ’90s, it had become a tourist attraction. By 2015, an estimated million pieces of gum were stuck to the wall, so much so that it had to be cleaned to prevent structural damage. Even now, after a major cleaning in 2018, gum continues to accumulate, and it remains a popular spot for selfies.<\/h4>\n

Compare the two gum attractions and we may notice a generational divide. Seattle\u2019s Gum Wall arose in the grunge era of the 1990s\u2014a spontaneous, countercultural, and somewhat grimy act, emblematic of Generation X\u2019s focus on originality and authenticity (yes, we could argue about how true to the facts that vibe was, but that was the vibe). #Gumbug, on the other hand, feels more aligned with the millennial and Gen Z mindset\u2014bright, colorful, and built for selfies. These generations, comfortable with bandwagon trends and nostalgia (I don’t think they’ll take that as an insult, even though it may seem like one coming from someone of the X generation), are less focused on originality and more on the moment. It\u2019s not about rejecting trends but embracing them, creating an aesthetic that\u2019s shareable and fleeting. All the world’s a stage and every trend a marketing ploy.<\/h4>\n

But not every ploy is successful. Months after its launch, there\u2019s still plenty of room on the #gumbug for more wads of freshly chewed gum. Either the bug is going through repeated cleanings or this trend hasn’t quite taken off. (It’s not exactly demure, after all.)<\/h4>\n
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The Project Tala mural, painted by Teiano Lesa and Enoch Leui in 2019, was originally in this location.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first question you may ask yourself is, Why? Why stick a piece of chewed bubble gum onto a brightly-painted Volkswagen Bug in downtown Provo, Utah? Surely, not to be transgressive: the owners have encouraged you to. Nor likely out of necessity\u2014that is, a big wad of gum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in_plain_site","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/IMG_4630-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 21:52:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87356"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87360,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87356\/revisions\/87360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}