 Artists
have long been fascinated by the methods used in seducing customers,
and by the locales of shopping – from corner shops and department
stores to contemporary suburban mega-malls. Shopping: A
Century of Art and Consumer Culture examines the relationship
between the display, distribution and consumption of commodities
and modern and contemporary art, and includes works that blur
the distinction between the shop environment and the gallery
environment. The exhibition begins with Your Supermarket
2002 by Guillaume Bijl, a 'real' supermarket in the gallery,
with shelves of fresh food, drinks and household products, as
well as checkout tills. Bijl presents us with a familiar place
but because nothing is for sale our desire to buy is frustrated.
 Photographers
Eugène Atget, Berenice Abbott and Walker Evans chronicled
the disappearing world of small shops and specialist stores
in Paris, New York and beyond. Their work can be seen alongside
Stewart Bale’s photographs of shops such as Woolworths, Lewis’s
and Marks & Spencer in Liverpool.
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