box vox

Nabisco 12 Pack Cartons

These Nabisco boxes caught my eye at the supermarket for a few reasons...

a. They seem to be trompe l’oeil renditions of wrapped tray packaging—as if we were seeing the inner packs through a layer of Cellophane.

b. As such, they also suggest orthographic packaging, where the contents of a box are projected onto the side panels. I don’t really know how these packets are arranged within, but it appears they are not accurately projected on all sides.

c. Since the package design relies on illustrations of the inner packs to communicate its contents, there is an odd repetition of information when the carton contains only one type of packet. This repetition strikes me as almost Warholian. One box looks like a stack of three. Each box, a microcosm of a stacked supermarket display. The effect is more conventional (less repetitive) when the box contains a variety.

(A few more examples, after the fold...)

Bobby Grossman’s Corn Flakes, Die Originalen

“I photographed a number of friends eating Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The idea originated at RISD when I took a Mick Rock photo of Lou Reed and put it on a box of German Kellogg’s Corn Flakes... You can find a photo of Andy holding the box in Victor Bockris’ Lou Reed biography.” [above left]

–Bobby Grossman

The photo on right is Grossman’s original photograph. (thank you, Bobby!) A color photo of the box was also published in an illustration annual sometime in the 1970s and a black & white photo of the box was featured in the NY Rocker. (shown below)

Yesterday’s post was about the famous (but not infamous) people who are allowed to appear on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes. But it was this subversive take on their package, by photographer, Bobby Grossman, that first set me thinking about cereal boxes as a new, heavily censored type of media.

Ostensibly all-American—(Kellogg’s featured an American flag on one recent version of their corn flakes box)—but they’re really a multi-national, hence: a German box from the 1970s. Onto this already somewhat foreign backdrop, Grossman superimposed as unlikely a mainstream cereal box hero as can be imagined: Lou reed in black leather & black nail polish.

On left: Bobby Grossman’s Corn Flakes box (with appropriated Mick Rock photo) as it appear in the NY Rocker (via: SFview’s Flickr Photostream); on right: photo by Grossman of Warhol eating corn flakes

As a photographer, Grossman then proceeded with a series of unauthorized endorsement shots. Celebrities, but not the sort of celebrities that Kellogg’s generally celebrated. Andy Warhol (of course) but aside from him, mostly musicians...

Photos by Bobby Grossman of David Byrne, Deborah Harry, and David Johansen eating corn flakes

Do musicians in particular have some special affinity for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes? I’ve read that John Lennon wrote a song based on a particular Kellogg’s television commercial jingle...

“Good Morning Good Morning” is a song composed by (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and performed by The Beatles on the 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Inspiration for the song came to Lennon from a television commercial for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The jingle went: “Good morning, good morning, The best to you each morning, Sunshine Breakfast, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Crisp and full of fun”.

from Wikipedia’s entry on Good Morning Good Morning

And there’s also the Robert Hilburn book entitled “Corn Flakes with John Lennon.”

But the irony of Lennon using corn flakes advertising as a critique of the middle class, pales in comparison to the irony of Lou Reed on a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box.

Certainly if Kellogg’s would pull Michael Phelps boxes from their shelves due to pot smoking, they’re not likely to feature the author of a song entitled “Heroin” on their cereal. But the irony runs deeper still...

According to Grossman, his idea for putting Reed’s picture on the box “originated in 1974 while listening to Sally Can’t Dance.”

 So considering that Lou Reed’s “Sally Can’t Dance” album includes, “Kill Your Sons” a song about Reed’s electroshock therapy as a teenager in the 1960s...

Reed received electroconvulsive therapy in his teen years to “cure” homosexual behavior; he wrote about the experience in his 1974 song, “Kill Your Sons”. In an interview, Reed said of the experience:

    They put the thing down your throat so you don’t swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That’s what was recommended in Rockland County to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can’t read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go right back to page one again.

from Wikipedia’s entry on Lou Reed

And considering the history of Kellogg’s founder, John Harvey Kellogg...

One of the leading advocates of circumcision was John Harvey Kellogg, who is well known for his pseudoscientific views on human sexuality. He advocated the consumption of Kellogg’s corn flakes to prevent masturbation, and he believed that circumcision would be an effective way to eliminate masturbation in males.

from Wikipedia’s entry on Male Circumcision

But Kellogg’s antisexual advice did not end with corn flakes & circumcision. Electrical shocks also came highly recommended as a cure for unwanted sexual impulses.

Electricity.—Probably no single agent will accomplish more than this remedy when skillfully applied. It needs to be carefully used, and cannot be trusted in the hands of those not acquainted with the physical properties of the remedy and scientific methods of applying it.

John Harvey Kellogg
Plain Facts for Old and Young, 1881

(For more about John Harvey Kellogg, see: Porn Flakes)

Also chilling: Kellogg was among the early proponents of the American Eugenics movement and helped the found “Race Betterment Foundation” in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany (and in fact, U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter).

from Wikipedia’s entry on Eugenics in the United States

So for all these reasons, I say, Grossman’s Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, die originalen box with the Mick Rock photo of Lou Reed (a Jewish boy from Long Island), strikes me as ultra-ironic.

(Another Die Originalen irony, after the fold...)

Warhol & Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Shipping Cartons

The 1978 “Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Cereal” silkscreen print (via: ArtBrokerage.com)

Perhaps eclipsed by Campbell’s Soup & Brillo boxes, but Kellogg’s Corn Flakes shipping cartons have also figured prominently in the oeuvre of Warhol’s branded packaging artworks.

And just so you know, yesterday was the start of a series of posts concerning Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. Call it: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Week. Or not. I don’t care. It might run longer than a week, anyway.

Kellogg's Corn Flakes Boxes, 1971 (photo via: prettyinblack-tumbler)

(Another Warhol print & a genuine Kellogg’s shipping carton, after the fold...)

Warhol Wrist Watch

And since we’ve been spending so much time on Warholania, here’s one more: a redundant, 5-faced wristwatch/bracelet that was patented posthumously:

When Warhol found a string of five watches wired together into a kind of bracelet, he began to see how he could create an exciting design of his own, and discussed the idea with [Gerry] Grinberg.

Warhol then experimented with the shape and decoration of the watchface, rejecting painted designs as unsuitable. He decided that the watch should have five working faces, and that he would use photographs to decorate them...

...a limited edition numbering only 250; 50 pieces are being retained by Movado themselves, while 200 went on sale for $18,500 each in the summer of 1988.

via: Arts and Crafts Home

(Packaging & patent, after the fold...)

Zipper/Banana Mash-Up

The cover of The Dandy Warhols’ 2003 album, “Welcome to the Monkey House” featured this painting by Ron English. (a mash-up of the 2 aforementioned Andy Warhol album covers: Velvet Underground “banana“ & Rolling Stones “zipper”)

See also: Bananagrams

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Sticky Fingers Packaging: Zipper vs Tin Can

1. Zipper

Like The Velvet Underground’s “banana” album cover with its novel peeling banana sticker, the other well-known Andy Warhol produced album cover (the Rolling Stone’s “Sticky Fingers” on left) also had novel, conceal/reveal packaging gimmick: a functional zipper, beneath which was another photo of the same model wearing jockey briefs. (See also: Packaging Junk)

Warhol’s chief collaborator for this (as well as the Velvet’s banana cover) was actor & graphic designer Craig Braun. The success of the project was nearly derailed when the zipper packaging began damaging the product:

...a problem was to arise when the first pressings were shipped. Stacking the albums on top of each other caused the zip to press into the album above. This succeeded in damaging the vinyl, ruining side 2, track 3: Sister Morphine. The designer, Craig Braun, was threatened by the record’s distribution label Atlantic, with a substantial lawsuit—but he was to come up with an ingenious, yet simple, solution whilst “very depressed and very high” of pulling down the zipper before shipping so that any damage would only occur to the central label.

–Nick James

2. Tin Can

The album on the right was the alternate cover (designed by Hispavox Records) released in General Franco’s Spain, when authorities objected to the suggestive zipper package. Not the most appetizing of product placements for Fowler’s West Indian Treacle, but this was probably before anyone had ever thought of suing for product displacement. Note the vintage-style bull’s head can-opener. (via: Sleevage)

(After the fold: Jagger writes to Warhol, “Please write back saying how much money you would like.“)

The Velvet Underground: Book & Banana

Only collectible because of the influential band that named themselves after a copy they found in the street: this 1963 paperback “The Velvet Underground” by Michael Leigh (on left) was given to me as a birthday present around 1983–84. (from someone in another rather influential band)

Can’t say I’ve ever read it cover to cover, but I like the whippy “T” typography and have kept it in its protective plastic for 28 years. (Also: am I crazy or is the S&M boot illustration by Paul Bacon Studio on the cover kind of related to Warhol’s early shoe illustration work?)

The book on the right was a 1968 follow up sequel. (Nice that it features a photo of the earlier book.)

Also collectible: the first Velvet Underground album (below left)—the one with the peel-able yellow banana skin sticker. (We have one of those too, but only because Debby was cool enough to buy one and her records are mixed in with mine.) It always struck me funny how Andy Warhol’s signature was so prominent with no mention at all of the Velvet Underground or Nico on the front cover. Similar to Robert Brownjohn’s humorously arrogant stationery design for Michael Cooper. (Of course there might have been more information on a label affixed to the disposable shrink-wrap...)

The album with the green banana (on right) is the 2007 “Unripened” bootleg LP, made from an acetate pressing of an earlier version of the official 1967 release. (different mixes, different takes, etc.)

On the original cover the small printed instructions read, “PEEL SLOWLY AND SEE”;  the instructions next to the green banana read, “UNRIPENED LISTEN SLOWLY AND HEAR.”

There are lots of other versions of (and allusions to) this album cover, and Warhol’s silkscreened banana design has been pretty influential in its own right.

(A bootleg book/record cover and some related Warhol/Velvets banana merchandise, after the fold...)

Packaging Cakes

Top, left: Krylon spray paint can cake from DebbieDoesCakes; on right: Busch Beer Can “Groom’s Cake” (via: CakeCental.com); 2nd row, left: Opus Paint Tube Cake by HighBornTalon; 3rd row, left: Jack Daniel’s Bottle Cake from Dubai’s House of Cakes; on right: Marlboro Cigarette Pack Cake (via: CakeCentral.com); 4th row, left: Campbell’s Soup Can cake from Desserts in Bloom; on right: a prescription pill bottle cake from Jeremy Wolfe’s Flickr Photostream

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Campbell’s Thankgiving

Two things relating to the Package as Pixel thing:

1. An embossed tin Campbell’s Soup sign (circa: 1900–1910)

“A gorgeous and rare embossed tin sign for Campbell’s Soup, predating Warhol’s Pop Art by half a century is an attention getter. Most of these signs were destroyed when public opinion of the day deemed it to be a desecration of the American Flag. It comes to the Julia block with an estimate of $10,000/15,000.” [Sold for $18,400]

2007 Julia Auctions

2. From Canstruction New York 2010: a large Campbell’s Soup can made out of canned food — including other, possibly competing brands (e.g. Hunt’s Sauce).

Similar to Mary Campbell’s Food Can Mandala, Canstruction’s sculptures are later dissembled and donated to community food banks. (See also: Bean Can)

(One more thing, after the fold...)

Robert Loughlin’s Brutish Re-Branding

Some package-related artworks by Robert Loughlin. Prolific and single-minded, Loughlin has been painting “the brute” —(his signature squared-jawed smoking man)— on innumerable objects and surfaces since the early 1980s.¹  That some of these objects would be packages, only stands to reason. In tagging them with his own de facto logo, Loughlin² has, in effect re-branded them:

The vintage Mobil Oil can, the Brillo Box³, the perfume bottle picture—(I’m guessing that’s a magazine ad, rather than an actual bottle?)— Kodak Carousel Slide Tray boxes, a record label, a Sears Blanket insert card...

In recent years, Loughlin’s cartoonish, hyper-masculine, smoking “brute” has been featured in The New York Times, Apartment Therapy, Design Boom, etc. While most cite partner, Gary Carlson and his muse and inspiration for “the brute” motif, another important influence may be Leo Burnett’s “Marlboro Man” as the magazine clipping below (from Loughlin’s photo web site) seems to suggest.

Filters at the time were described by Leo Burnett as “sissy”. Real men didn’t smoke filter tipped cigarettes. ... Marlboro sold masculinity in 1954 by being the first brand to use “real men” versus the prior models. And what men! They showed football players, cowboys, airplane pilots, and sailors. These were tough, real men... The ads were not just masculine, but were single-mindedly masculine They portrayed manly, rugged men doing manly, rugged jobs.

From Tobacco Documents Online: page 1 of “The Marlboro Success Story,”
a 1985 marketing report made available online as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement

 

(What is the deal with the guns and the Marlboro pack above? Are the guns little? Or is it an oversized cigarette pack? I don’t know.) The machine gun on the left, is a vintage Tru-matic brand toy machine gun, painted and signed by the artist.

There is also Luke Joerger's film Pickers and Grinners which documents Loughlin’s prowess as a preeminent NY antique picker...

(See a clip of this movie—that features celebrity gossip & packaging—after the fold...)

Bread Loaf Lunch Box

From Gasoline Alley Antiques: a lunch box that looks like a loaf of sliced bread. (Available on their website for $400)

Conceptually similar to Robert Brownjohn’s cigarette package design that we discussed earlier this month.

Or it would be if this were a bread package. The idea being: the outside of the package serves as a precise diagram of the contents, almost as if the package were transparent. Except that—(just as in the food photography for some unphotogenic frozen entrée)—there’s an opportunity to show a more idealized version of the contents than would be seen through an ordinary transparent package.

And because trompe l’oeil packaging is so fun, the consumer won’t mind being fooled.

(Bread Loaf Lunch Box also comes with a package-related thermos, after the fold...)

Karen Shapiro’s Ceramic Packaging

Descriptions of San Francisco-based artist, Karen Shapiro’s work often speak in terms of “every day objects.” As in 2006 when Neatorama said: “Karen makes super-sized every day objects in raku ceramics.” I’m not exactly sure why people want to use as vague and non-specific a phrase as “every day objects.” The great preponderance of these object are packages. 

Whether packages are, in fact, the type of objects you’re mostly surrounded with on any given day, kind of of depends on who you are, what your life is like and what type of day you generally have.

If you’re a package designer or stockboy, then, yes, these are every day objects.

If not, then maybe Shapiro’s choice of subject matter is not so happenstance. The heading on her website is “American Pop Icons” and the connection to Pop Art is pretty explicit. One of her sculptures is of a Campbell’s Soup can; she’s done a Brillo box, etc. In Warhol’s day, however, these packages were contemporary and charmless. Most of the sculptures on her site—based, as they are, on vintage packaging—have a nostalgic charm that Pop Art did not originally enjoy. Not that she’s necessarily sticking to only vintage packaging. I’ve also seen a few examples of her using more contemporary—(i.e.: charmless)—subjects. Like her Trader Joe’s salsa jar. (To my knowledge, no one is citing that jar’s label as an American pop packaging icon.)

We’ve talked in the past about Pop Art’s role in making packaging more acceptable in the home, and perhaps because of this, Shapiro’s sculptures have found easier acceptance as home decor.

“Collectors tend to buy two and three pieces and then put them on a kitchen counter or vanity, places where the actual items would go.”

Chris Winfield, Winfield Gallery

The crackle glaze does give Shapiro’s sculptures a very different vibe from that of 1960’s Pop Art. It tends to legitimize their claim as valuable objects deserving permanent counter space—as opposed to disposable packages. In some cases, however, the crackle effect may be a little alarming. If the jar is cracked like the windshield of a crashed car, how wholesome can the mayonnaise be?

 

(More of Shapiro’s work, after the fold...)

Rob Pruitt: Art of Mislabeled Beverage Packaging

Sculpture by Rob Pruitt: On left, “Un Carton d’Evian Nomad” 2002—glitter and enamel on carboard box, 2002; on right, “Evian Fountain” 2000—Evian cardboard boxes, plastic sheets, mineral water, hydraulic pump

Last weekend I was looking at Rob Pruitt’s new coffee-table art-book, “Pop Touched Me: The Art of Rob Pruitt” and struck me that beverage packaging has been a recurring theme in his work for some time now.

A series of glittery bottled-water cartons—(featuring various premium brands). Groups of cartons, arranged to form artificial springs.

1. POLAND SPRING WATER (20 OZ. BOTTLE, $1) The consumer culture that polluted the planet has created an antidote by branding nature. As Coke/Pepsi was to the Pop ’60s generation, bottled water is the lifestyle beverage of the present. A fashion accessory, the simplest elixir, and a symbol of purity, each bottle of water purchased elicits reflection on nature and its fragility.

from Rob Pruitt’s “Top Ten List”
published in ArtForum February, 2000.
(Number 1 was about bottled water)

The Pop Art precedent is pretty explicit here. These boxes are real reminiscent of the famous Brillo boxes. And Pruitt happily stipulates to this important influence.

Almost everything I do I think relates back to ANDY WARHOL, because he’s an artist I discovered when I was really young. My mother had a soup can poster hanging in our kitchen when I was 7, and I would stare at it every morning when I ate my cornflakes. Even back then, I thought, “Boy, this is really funny.”

Rob Pruitt from an interview in Papermag by James Fuentes

Some of Pruitt’s earliest works were collaborative sculptures with Walter Early. Many of these sculptures involved beer cans...

Rob Pruitt & Walter Early: on left: “Sculpture for Teenage Boys, (Pabst Case, You're Playing with Fire)”, beer cans with decals in cardboard box, early 1990’s; on right, “Sculpture for Teenage Boys: Miller Pyramid, 13 High” 1990

...Artwork for Teenage Boys did involve pretty offensive, sexist, misogynistic expressions of white, male teen­age culture that we’d basically gotten from T-shirt iron-ons and rock music lyrics. That was our first project right out of art school—not that I’m making excuses for it. I thought it was pretty good. We were trying to make a portrait of this segment of the pop­ulation who was the enemy, who harassed us in high school, who beat us up behind the gym. It was an interesting exercise in politics and aesthetics just to gather all of this really vile information and see what it looked like together. I really viewed that project as a portrait of the enemy.

Rob Pruitt interviewed by James Franco for Interview Magazine

Another of the early Pruitt-Early pieces touched on the idea of using soda cans to disguise alcoholic beverages.

(More about that, after the fold...)

Packaging via: Rubikcubism

 Some package-related artworks by Invader—the French “street artist” best known for installing unauthorized tile mosaics of 8-bit¹ video game graphics in public places.

The album cover mosaics, above, and Campbell’s Soup can², on right, are actually assemblages of Rubik’s cubes. (See: Rubikcubism)

Like Space Invaders, the Rubik’s Cube is an 80s game made from colored squares.  It’s a fascinating object, as it’s both extremely simple and extremely complex. Did you know there are over 43 billion possible permutations for a Rubik’s Cube? I use the Rubik's Cube like an artist uses paint. I like the idea that it wasn’t intended to be used this way, and that ultimately it works really well.

Invader

For me, the bitmapped album covers, easiest to decipher, are those that I’m familiar with—that I actually owned and listened to. (Above: Abbey Road, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Country Life, and Nevermind) They simultaneously hark back to the obsolete, orphaned medium of vinyl records, while more closely resembling a low-res iTunes thumbnail.

But it’s not all conceptual post-digital pointillism. This work also flaunts an impressive mastery of Rubik’s cube moves as shown in the video below. (Please note: the opening shot...)

(Another photo & footnoted digressions, after the fold....)

Campbell’s Spray Paint Cans

On left: “Campbell’s Graffiti Soup” by Rene Gagnon; on right: Mr. Brainwash’s “Tomato Spray.” Two different artists with a financial stake in the same concept. Both silkscreen prints. Both sold-out editions of 100.

To the extent that graffiti (and art, in general) has certain competitive goals in common with product branding—(getting the name out there, claiming territory, defending reputation)—it should come as no big surprise that graffiti artists would think of referencing consumer packaged goods.

While it’s nice to think that parallel ideas might signify some broader cultural shift, in situations where there is a potential for "consumer confusion"—as with consumer brands—this can be considered trademark infringement. 

Massachusetts-based Rene Gagnon and Los-Angeles-based Frenchman, Thierry Guetta (aka "Mr. Brainwash") are both graffiti-style artists, whose works have frequently alluded to Andy Warhol’s work. Among their many Warhol-based concepts, they each have done many, many artworks using this Campbells-Soup/Spray-Paint-Can idea. Naturally there has been controversy about who’s ripping off whom. (See: Bansky Forum) For the record, it appears that Rene Gagnon got there first in 2006.

Sure, “great minds think alike” and maybe the controversy has helped both artists garner more attention —(and therefore sell more art). But confusing, it certainly is.

“Multiplied Tomato Spray” by Mr. Brainwash (via: Dregs)

Rene Gagnon’s poster, above, confronts his competitor directly by ironically claiming “The Original” as his product benefit. (Layout is based on the same Campbell’s Soup “Can Bag” promotion that we featured: here) 

(More, after the fold...)

Can Bag

Even if you weren’t around to order this pop-art-accessory “can bag” from Campbell’s Soup in 1969, they can sometimes still be found. The one on the right was for sale on Etsy, but I believe it’s been sold. Photo of 1969 ad on right is from Pink Ponk’s Flickr Photostream. (See also: Campbell’s Soup Radio)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Soup & Cigarettes: Separated at Birth?

 

Jeff Goran’s “A Lighter or a Spoon” conflates Campbell’s Soup with Marlboro Cigarettes

Jeff Goran’s packaging mash-up has already appeared in blogs aplenty... but I like it too!

I like how, in swapping the trade dress of these two products from two non-competing categories, he creates a momentary confusion. Although not the same sort of “confusion in the mind of the consumer” that motivated Philip Morris when they took King Mountain Cigarette Company to court earlier this year:

Philip Morris claims that the appearance of King Mountain’s packaging is a close copy or imitation of its Marlboro packaging such that consumers are both actually and likely to be confused, that Philip Morris’s Marlboro trademark is infringed and diluted, and alleges that its reputation is tarnished. King Mountain, on the other hand, argues that its packaging depicts Mt. Adams—known as “Pahto” in the Yakama Nation—a mountain of spiritual and cultural significance to the Yakama Tribe and that any resemblance to Philip Morris’s packaging is inadvertent and incidental. King Mountain applied to register its package design but the USPTO refused registration, citing two of Philip Morris’s registrations.

 

via Seattle Trademark Lawyer

Regarding Campbell’s and Marlboro, there’s little likelihood of any confusion (under ordinary circumstances) because they are sold in different, non-competing product categories. But they are similar...

Perhaps the most successful package redesign of all time was that done for Marlboro cigarettes in 1955 by the designer Frank Gianninoto. The Marlboro cigarette had existed previously in a white pack covered with weak graphic elements and a lot of copy. It was associated with women, at a time when buyers of filter cigarettes were most likely to be women. But filters were beginning to catch on with men too, and the redesign was prompted by the desire of Philip Morris, the tobacco company, to have a filter cigarette that would appeal to all. Gianninoto’s simplification was, in fact, very like the Campbell’s soup can— red on top, white on the bottom, with a coat of arms that like Campbell’s gold medal, tends to disappear. The white meets the red as an arrow pointing upward, a very simple graphic device visible on even the snowiest television set.

Marlboro Country Was Once No Man’s Land
By Thomas Hine, NY Times, Sunday, April 16, 1995

Interestingly, it was Gianninoto’s firm, Gianninoto Associates, that in 1999 altered the iconic Campbell’s packaging that Marlboro’s packaging most resembled. (See: After 102 Years, Campbell Alters Soup Labels)

 

Another thing that I like about Goran’s picture is how the two packaging shapes (can and box) work together like fraternal twins. (Sort of like this can-shaped product packaged in a box.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Soup Can Columns

Soup can columns on the exterior of the Warhol Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy marking the 20th anniversary of Warhol's death (Photo by Tom Rolfe, 2007, Edinburgh, Scotland).

Credited with the idea of converting their columns into stacks of giant Campbell’s Soup cans, the National Gallery of Scotland’s “in-house marketing team” was awarded a Media Guardian Innovation Award last April.

(Another package related Warhol photo by Rolfe, after the fold...)

Von Buhler's Prize Capsules

Another packaging-related artwork from last weekend’s “Mapping Staten Island” show: Cynthia Von Buhler’s Cynth-O-Matic vending machine. This interactive sculpture caught me off guard and I was putting quarters into it before I had really sorted out my (art-consumer) choices carefully.

“This one has some color,” I thought to myself, “I’ll have one of those...” [turned the handle—made my first purchase] “Oh, it’s menstrual blood... hmmm, what were my other choices? Eyelashes, fingernail clippings, hair, pubic hair... OK, I’ll buy one more capsule, but I cannot be the guy who comes in here and buys only menstrual blood & pubic hair, so I guess I’ll have to go with the fingernails...”

The Cynth-O-Matic machine soon separated this doddering old fool and his money (Photos above by Debby Davis)

Although the capsules’ labels claim that their contents are “100% Genuine” I do have some doubts about their authenticity. As a collector, I don’t want to open these capsules (thereby diminishing their resale value) but, to my eyes, the fingernails look a little plastic and the red seems too bright. (Doesn’t blood dry out and turn brown?) Plus, hair and fingernails take a while to grow. We covered another reliquary type fingernail artwork (here) and, in that case, it took the artist a long time to accumulate a quantity of fingernail clippings. Of course if the contents of Von Behler’s capsules turn out not to be genuine then what I lose as fetish object, I gain in commentary on truth-in-advertising. Her website has this to say about the project:

Have you ever noticed that when you go to an art opening, many people are more focused on the artist than the artwork? Frequently, art viewers do not seriously look at the art. Usually they drink the wine, eat the cheese, and show more interest in the artist than in their art. The Cynth-O-Matic is the answer to this troubling problem. For 25 cents, you can actually have a piece of the artist.

(More photos and another of Von Behler’s package-related vending machines, after the fold...)

Douglas Coupland's Plastic Bottle Sculptures

Upper left photo: by Martin Tessler for The New York Times; upper right: photo of the 2001 “Spike” installation at Totem Gallery; lower photos: mug shot photos of “Bottle No. 5 Downey”

I saw this article in the NY Times last week about writer/artist, Douglas Coupland’s home renovation project. The photo above (with the over-sized (unlabeled) Downy Fabric Softener bottle at the base of the stairs) caught my eye. I figured: if Coupland made this one package-related sculpture, then he must have made others...

I found them in the 2001 “Spike” installation at Totem Gallery.

The inspiration for ... the sculptures was a family crisis, Mr. Coupland said. His niece, Sarah, was born in Vancouver two years ago without a left hand, at a time when statistics there marked an upward turn—a spike—in birth defects...

The sculptures include huge plastic bottles, recognizable even without labels—Tide, Downy, Alberto VO5. Mr. Coupland had a vision one night in a Vancouver Wal-Mart, he said. He was struck with the beauty of detergent bottles and bought dozens.

“'Any passion to collect has some meaning behind it,” he added. The meaning was revealed when a friend pointed out that the bottles were all shaped to attract the hand—and that they contained chemicals that might cause birth defects.

from A night out with: Douglas Coupland; Escape From Gen X
By Phil Patton, NY Times, September 9, 2001

It turns out that Coupland has done plenty of other package-related artworks. Too many examples to show them all here...

(But I’ll show 4 more, after the fold...)