glop art

n.

An underground art movement that involves sticking chewing gum strategically on poster faces.

—glop artist n.

Example Citation:

Following hard on the heels of the media hype surrounding Damien Hirst, comes an underground backlash in the form of Glop Art. Owing a debt to the graffiti movement of the eighties, Glop Artists modify advertising posters with the aid of chewing gum.

—Stewart Home, Mind Invaders, Serpent's Tail, February 1, 1997

Earliest Citation:

You're in a tube station in London and you see someone chewing gum maniacally, staring at a poster of Liz Hurley. Suddenly he spins round and slap! There goes the gum, on to the end of Liz's nose.

What have you seen? Not an act of vandalism, but a work of "glop art."

Underground stations such as Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus in London are the best places to spot "glop art" — defined by its practitioners as the deliberate slapping of chewing gum on a glossy ad — though sightings have also been reported in Glasgow.

—Charlotte O'Sullivan, "Chewing gum enter realm of pop art," London Observer, July 3, 1996

Related Words:

bad-debt art

birth art

crop artist

scratchiti

Category:

Art and Design