Sarah Staton has been exhibiting her work in museums and galleries since the late ‘80s, but in the summer of 1993 she hit the streets of London in an attempt to sell her art like a door-to-door salesman. She’d make appointments with potential buyers, or just show up at a person’s house, with the hope that someone would want to buy from her inventory of papier-mâché coins, cigarettes, credit cards, and other seemingly insignificant daily detritus. This act evolved into her ongoing SupaStore project, a DIY art sale experiment that has transpired at dozens of galleries and alternative venues over the years, the most recent at Galerie Emanuel Layr in Vienna. Over one hundred artists, ranging in recognition, have had a piece they created on sale at the SupaStore. Installed at Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax is 10 SupaStore SupaStars, a portfolio of lithographs by various artists selected by Staton.

The artists, who include Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Tomato, Sarah Staton, Simon Periton, Gary Hume, Georgie Hopton, Anya Gallaccio, Tracey Emin, Simon Bill, and Ellen Cantor personify the rebellious spirit of the SupaStore scheme, and their presence in a relinquished record shop-turned-gallery underscores its history as a rogue outpost in art’s commercial sector.

Emin herself splashed around in the art market when she and Sarah Lucas opened The Shop in East London, also in 1993. Staton, Emin, and Lucas ushered in a new wave of underground hipness that London desperately needed at the time simply by offering venues and artworks that were intelligent, fun, and unpretentious, and by bringing together likeminded people in the arts with the rest of the neighborhood population. These ladies introduced something fresh to their community, but they were not the first, nor the last, to engage in the commercial side of art.

In 1935, Marcel Duchamp tried to sell his Rotoreliefs at a Paris inventor’s fair in an effort to have “a direct contact” with the consumer. It was a financial failure, as the consumers he reached out to were invested in science and technology, not art. The occurrence, however, became a quirky footnote in his biography, and was followed up with a stint posing as a cheese merchant to pass Nazi checkpoints in 1941. Duchamp’s episodes in mercantilism involved a degree of role-playing in which he detached himself from his artist position. Claes Oldenburg, on the other hand, placed his occupation as an artist at the forefront of his business endeavors when he opened The Store in December 1961.

The Store occupied the front of Oldenburg’s studio in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he filled it with his sculptural replicas of diner food, clothing, cigarettes, price tags and sales posters. The Store allowed Oldenburg to bypass the gallery/art dealer/middle man and sell his work on his own terms, but more importantly it marked a pivotal moment in American culture when art and commerce started to blatantly appropriate each others aesthetics and economic agendas. Artists continued to incorporate commercial activities and spaces into their creative practice, but some took it a step further by investing in their stores and merchandise long term.

Emin and Lucas’ shop lasted six months, Oldenburg’s store only one month. Keith Haring’s Pop Shop stayed open for nearly two decades, from 1986 until September 2005. Located on Lafayette Street in SoHo, Haring decked out his Pop Shop with floor to ceiling murals and sold gifts and clothing donning his signature artistry. Haring made his motive for the shop clear: “Here’s the philosophy behind the Pop Shop: I wanted to continue the same sort of communication as with the subway drawings. I wanted to attract the same wide range of people and I wanted it to be a place where, yes, not only collectors could come, but also kids from the Bronx … this was still an art statement.” Unfortunately the Pop Shop had to close due to the high cost of maintaining a retail space in NYC, but it still operates online with profits going toward The Keith Haring Foundation.

The Pop Shop grew into a successful business establishment, but it always maintained its DIY attitude and was accessible to people from all walks of life. Larger corporate entities, particularly distinguished fashion houses, have since caught on to the soaring popularity and marketability of artist wares, and frequently enlist prominent contemporary artists to design and promote their products.

Jeremy Deller installation for Louis Vuitton, London

One of the companies leading this trend is Louis Vuitton, which has collaborated with dozens of artists who work in a range of genres. From the graffiti styles of RETNA and Aiko to the conceptual aesthetics of Jeremy Deller and Daniel Buren, LV has exposed its clientele to a world of art that supersedes other brands. The artists they work with not only design the line, but they also frequently use the stores as space to create immersive installations. This level of collaboration thus transforms the usual shopping trip into a cultural experience, where the shopper is not just walking into a store and buying a purse, but rather walking into an exhibition and leaving with a piece of art.

Contemporary art is so heavily dependent on the market that it’s no wonder artists are finding ways to integrate it into their practice. What is most interesting to observe is the manner in which they choose to do this, whether it’s in a temporary space where they sell their own handmade items, or by teaming up with established companies to spread their work to a mass audience. Regardless of the approach, though, is the fact is that artists are recontextualizing space and interrupting the typical patterns of the art market. Sarah Staton’s SupaStore is one of the longest running projects to do this, which is an important quality that sets it apart from others. The SupaStore is also dependent on the contributions of multiple artists, allowing it to showcase such a range of artworks while other artist shop projects focus on one or maybe a few different people. What started as a parody on art’s commodification eventually grew into a documentation of the developments and movements in contemporary art, and the subsequent correlations that ebb and flow with the market and consumer habits. With 10 SupaStore SupaStars now at the Dikeou Pop-Up, a work acquired by an artist who also participated in the SupaStore, we see how the art market can come full circle in meaningful ways that can be sincere rather than superficial or trendy.

Click here to read more about the economics behind 10 SupaStore SupaStars.

-Hayley Richardson