Supastore Biography • Charing Cross Road, Laure Genillard Gallery, I.C.A. Bookshop: London, Great Britain, San Francisco Art Fair: S.F., California, Middlesbrough Art Gallery: Middlesbrough, Great Britain
The supastore continues to get bigger
and better and further afield. It’s run by an artist and has the
work of many known and shown and unknown and unshown artists from all
over the place. Most things are affordable to the average shopper; shopping
is encouraged from everyone.
The supastore, run and styled by Sarah Staton in its various guises, was
set up in London and has traveled to San Francisco and Middlesbrough with
possibilities of reaching Stockholm, Japan, and Köln. supastore is
the antithesis of the U.S. style versus the Supascale shopping experience
that developed in the U.K. in the late 80s.
Sarah Staton’s traveling-sales summer of 1993 was the beginning.
Sarah used a door-to-door sales representative technique, making appointments
or just turning up on the doorstep. She sold two hand-made papier-mâché
collections, “Jet-Set” and “Bum Life”—representing
those who have and those who have not. “Jet-Set” included packets
of cigarettes, keys (signifying property), telephone and credit cards,
cheques, and sushi. “Bum Life” was just coins and butts, discarded
objects that can be picked up anywhere—usually bus stops, train stations,
etc.
As part of her art world experiments Sarah also tried selling her papier-mâché
items at street markets, continuing her research to find out how best
to sell her art D.I.Y. style.
supastore ’93 started up in a derelict building, 148 Charing Cross
Road in London, and was both store and soup kitchen, selling things like
target T-shirts, canned rose petals, papier-mâché, cigarettes
and cigar butts, coins and sushi, truth drugs, laundry baskets, mobile
phones, videos, posters, her own brand of whiskey. The building was quite
rough and unready and although this was the smallest supastore in terms
of works for sale, a lot of artists and friends visited and many have
contributed to the supastores and followed.
The supastore boutique at the Laure Genillard Gallery in London in September
’94 was a smaller space but completely packed with art works from
the very famous to the hardly known. A good mixture of fashion and beauty
products: T-shirts, perfume, soap, baklava, bags, gun holsters, suicide
gloves, glitter balls, books, videos, audio tapes, postcards, rubber bands,
wall drawings, quilted suits, cow gloves, 70s clothing, calendars, badges,
manicures, style advice, skull hats, faux fur, shoeboxes, watches, paper
aprons . . . The gallery was totally packed with art for sale, and visitors;
it was the most attended show in the history of the gallery.
supastore ’94 at the I.C.A. book shop, a micro-shop within a shop,
had selected supastore art as part of the I.C.A. Christmas. Merchandise
included glitter balls, calendars and videos, to name a few.
supastore s.f went to the San Francisco Art Fair in January of ’95
selling paintings, drawings etc . . . more traveling-gallery style. It
also meant that the Americans got a look and Sarah was able to get some
of them involved.
supastore in Middlesbrough in April of ’95 was styled as more a thrift
store/garage sale in the north of England. Sarah set up the show/store
but the gallery staff were left to look after it, often modeling the stock.
All the supastores have been adapted and renamed in conjunction with the
venue, taking into account the time and the feeling of the place. The
works are selected and obtained to fit in with this practice. Currently
Sarah is preparing for the Supastore to be filmed as part of a BBC art
program and also setting up shop in London this winter. Pauline Daly
London, Great Britain
1995