PARALLELS: COVID-19
Dear reader, my Parallels series usually highlights the connections between commercial galleries and non-profit institutions in the art world. This one is going to be different.
This pandemic has changed our view of the world, including aspects of reality that we once took for granted. Coming from a privileged standpoint, I think one the most striking moments for me was going shopping for groceries while general panic was just beginning to take over everyone’s thinking. The effect? People started stocking up on goods. I remember going to the supermarket: the shelves were EMPTY. I had never experienced such a thing, surely sometimes this or that item might be missing, but never such an array of them. No pasta, no rice, no canned goods, no bread, no meat, and the list could go on – let’s not forget no toilet paper (what has probably become the symbol - or the missing-symbol - of 2020).
Walking through the voided isles a series of artist-made supermarkets and stores came to my mind and made me smile. I began thinking: we could take a ‘walk’ through some of these ‘together’!
Claes Oldenburg, The Store, 1961. Source: unknown.
Let’s start our shopping spree in the winter of 1961. That year, Claes Oldenburg bypassed the gallery format and set up The Store in the Lower East Side of New York. On sale were a variety of objects ranging from hamburgers to lingerie, from blueberry-pies to cigarettes. The objects, clearly not edible, were created with painted plaster. But Oldenburg didn’t stop there, he made sure to also print posters for advertising – which in themselves are today held as independent objects in the collections of the Tate and MoMA. The Store could be considered as a conceptual artwork, distinct from the single pieces sold inside. It carried with it many themes, and among the most evident an interest in the fine line between art and commodity.
In the attempt of being more contemporary, let’s time-travel into the 21st century.
Xu Zhen, XUZHEN SUPERMARKET, 2007. Source: unknown.
The commodification of art is similarly present as a theme in the series of Supermarkets created by Xu Zhen. The Shanghai-based artist, together with his team, purchased all the products offered by a convenience -store, emptied them, resealed them, and sold for the exact same price they were initially purchased for. The result? Supermarkets fully stocked with empty art-objects. This completely ironic convenience -store was first presented at Miami Art Basel in 2007, then titled ShangArt Supermarket – the first part of the name referring to the art-gallery that was presenting the project. Following, various iterations were created. One of them – XUZHEN SUPERMARKET – sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2018 for 2,000,000 HKD.
Lucy Sparrow, The Corner Shop, 2014. Source: unknown.
But why don’t we hop back on our imaginary traveling machine and stop and visit Lucy Sparrow’s The Corner Shop (2014) in London and then 8 ‘Til Late (2017) in Manhattan. On these two occasions the female British artist stocked two temporary stores with her well-known felt-created objects. In these two occasions the avid buyers were offered a more tactile and soft experience, with the chance to buy anything from a box of cereal to a wonderful non-edible steak.
The last stop, has still to actually materialise. Stephanie Shih has spoken in various interviews about the idea of opening a small grocery store to sell her ceramics. Shih’s practice draws from her heritage to explore Chinese-American traditions. Most known for her patiently hand-crafted dumplings, the artist has expanded her recreation of food to include rice bags, soy-sauce bottles and many other food products.
In conclusion, my dear art-loving shopaholics, visions of full grocery store shelves can be yours. And let’s hope as new times come in the days ahead, they will include fully-stocked real supermarkets once again.
Erica Rompani,
Head of Reviews, MADE IN BED