When Sarah Staton set up shop at the Laure Genillard Gallery, London, in 1994, her 'Superstore Boutique' stocked things made by herself and her artist friends. The goods ranged from bars of 'gender soap', pink for girls and blue for boys, to a survival kit for the armchair anarchist, a cardigan, pipe and slippers stamped with the Anarchist symbol. Staton's store, which, since it first opened on London's Charing Cross Road in 1993, has had outlets in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Bregenz (Austria), Manchester, Middlesborough and Bristol, is a tongue-in-cheek critique of our branded age. It is also an ironic comment on the marketing of artistic genius in today's museums, when gallery shops are major money spinners, and blockbuster exhibitions are seen as marketing opportunities (for example, Tate's Cezanne-wiches, sold at their mammoth show of the artist's work in 1996).
There have been artistic precedents for Staton's enterprise. Marcel Duchamp posed as a shopkeeper selling erotic toys at a Paris fair in 1936. Claes Oldenberg and Keith Haring opened their own stores, and Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas founded a joint venture on Bethnal Green Road. Emin also contributed sticks of peppermint rock to Staton's store, which sold at 3 pounds each. The opening of shops by 'Young British Artists' can be understood as a response to the recession they found themselves in, which made it difficult for graduates to establish themselves. Staton's work is also part of a revival of the making of multiples (made earlier by artists such as Mary Martin and Liliane Lijn), mass-produced affordable art for all. Yet, ironically, Staton's bars of soap now change hands for around 400 pounds.
Extending her multiples project. Staton has gone into publishing prints, selling work by artists such as Tracey Emin and Anya Gallacio. Staton has also recently made a series of Anti-Paintings, replacing artists, canvas and paints with bleach on denim, reversing the process by which artists make their mark by creating an image through the act of erasure. |
