Heist Gallery as Eisenberg Deli
For a 2009 exhibition at Heist Gallery in NYC, we took shopdropping one step further. To properly display this project in a gallery, but also within its original context, we needed to transform the space into a passable store. Leading up to the opening we announced that the gallery was going out of business and then opened a fully functional “bodega-style” market (The Eisenberg Deli & Grocery in honor of the owner of Heist, Talia Eisenberg.) for the month that the show was open. Over the course of the month we confused a lot of the neighborhood, pissed off the Chinese mafia types, got busted by the police, and convinced a fair number of the art audience that Heist was no more. In the end it was a bit of a reverse shopdrop. Or maybe a reverse reverse shoplift?
Excerpt from the press release that eventually explained the hi jinx:
“Heist Gallery and Metro Color Collision are proud to present a sensational solo exhibition by Ryan Watkins-Hughes From Gallery to Grocery: Yes, we canned. For the exhibition, Heist Gallery will clandestinely transform its primary mode of business by operating under the pretense of a local corner grocery. Ryan Watkins-Hughes, whose ongoing “Shopdropping” project (www.shopdropping.net) is the basis for the “transition,” will exhibit his shopdropped cans along the newly deployed shelves, in an altered environment complete with shoddy carpeting, cardboard floors, and miscellaneous grocery products.”
http://www.heistgallery.com/exhibition/yes-we-canned
