The division between pop iconography and brand imagery is so faint it’s worth questioning if it exists at all, and that’s the faint line Aussie artist Ben Frost has been cheerfully trampling all over in The Perfect Drug. Painting directly onto ‘found’ packaging (we’re hoping that means bought rather than salvaged from someone’s bin), Frost gently subverts mass-consumerism, giving some of the big players – and their customers – a cheeky nipple-tweak with his additional artwork.
We think it’s safe to say, without unnecessarily bothering the We Heart lawyers, that McDonalds has a pretty pervasive and persuasive brand image despite not selling the healthiest food on God’s green earth. Both the religion-like nature and nutritional effects of the Golden Arches (sorry lawyers, can’t be arsed to look for the trademark symbol) comes in for the Frost treatment in his fries jackets, while in another example the packaging of an indigestion medicine points a rather unflattering finger at the possible cause of the problem. Singapore’s Kult Gallery is the place to get a fix of what Frost is selling in The Perfect Drug, from 21st February to 18th March.
In the meantime you have a think about how advertising and branding gets into your system while I have a Chunky Kit Kat. Other wafery chocolate bars are probably available, but I couldn’t tell you their names off the top of my head…
