The Corner Store of the $pectacle

(There’s a lot to say about this project, so make sure to read to the end!)

On view at Modern Art from May 2024 through December 2024

“In the decor of the spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices”

— Guy DeBord, Society of the Spectacle

The Corner Store of the $pectacle is an art installation, an economic experiment, and a situationist intervention. It’s a pop-up shop that blurs the line between art, community, and the capitalist system.

Inside the Corner Store, the walls are lined with 300 hand-painted "For Sale" signs, each priced uniquely from $1 to $300. Every sign, along with everything else in the studio, is available for purchase. Each sign comes with verification of the date is was made, what I was listening to and thinking about when I painted it. Behind each sign is a hidden message, revealed only piece by piece as customers buy signs and take them down, gradually uncovering the full phrase underneath.

During the 6-months of preparing the installation, I kept meticulous notes detailing the hours and money spent, the investments, the overhead— all the resources, seen and unseen— that have gone into putting on a artistic spectacle. Each item in the studio (from the brooms to my computer to the art supplies) was priced based on a complicated equation of it’s value to me, at that moment.

But what determines value? How do we assign a monetary value to art, engagement, and the unknown in an increasingly automated, data and efficiency-driven society? The project became a much-needed exploration of my relationship with money and the challenges of sustaining a creative career in a world that prioritizes profitability over compassion, automation over craft, and efficiency over beautiful meandering. What do we value, as individuals and as a community, and why? The Corner Store helped me, and hopefully others, process whether such a space can thrive in our current economic climate. It challenges us all to consider alternative ways of supporting creativity, surprise, mystery, and human connection.

Every painting is accompanied by documentation and certification of it’s authenticity. The unique circumstances around what was happening when the sign was created were meticulously recorded and became part of the art. What was I listening to? And thinking about?

Before the store opened, I left coupon flyers around town for anyone looking for a deal. Coupons advertised discounts on, and off, the products. Because really, when it’s valuable, why pay less?

Everything that Modern Art has gathered and created for the past 12 years was priced based on it’s value to me at that moment. Every purchase made the customer a part of the art, the conversation, and part of the (Corner Store of the) Spectacle.

But what’s an economic system without a speculative enterprise? To that end, under each painted sign was a piece of a secret message—a path to hidden treasures, both monetary and existential. The secret gradually unfolded as each of the signs were sold, only to be fully revealed when enough signs were purchased to reveal the message. What did the message say? It would take some collective capitalism to find the answer.

Exactly 6 months into the installation, a savvy customer decoded the hidden words:

In the decor of the spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices.
Hidden value is everywhere $$, you are worth it.

What’s worth more to you?
Art?
$100?
A stranger’s smile?
A sliver of hope?
Look closely and you can have them all. Under the mailbox outside is a hidden envelope.
Treasures of all kinds await the curious. xo, Lib

Matthew (seen below) sat quietly staring at the walls while his friend Erin and I gabbed. When he abruptly got up and stormed out, I assumed he’d had it with waiting. But no! Turns out he’d figured out the message and was outside looking for the hidden treasure under the mailbox.

He came rushing in with the hidden envelope and a crisp $100 bill. The message inside read:

Congratulations! You have found the hidden treasure!
Inside this envelope is a magical $100 bill. Take this money and
1) Buy something nice for yourself.
2) Buy something nice for a stranger, and
3) Relish in the hope it brings that generosity is the best value.

Erin and Matthew reported back the next week that they’d gone out for a nice dinner and picked up the tab of the couple sitting next to them. Generosity, a stranger's smile, a weird art project, dinner with a friend—this is indeed the most valuable thing. Somewhere out there, a couple who ordered dinner and got a surprise on their bill is telling this story too, without knowing where it started. That's the treasure, and the value, multiplying.