The Shopping Shop

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the opening of Tracey Emin’s and Sarah Lucas’s The Shop. Part-art studio, part-shop, part-social hub – but fully radical and anarchic – the idea was born out of both artists wanting ‘a shop shop’ but in the end proved to be quite unlike anywhere else.

The idea was widely well received and hailed then and since as instrumental in revolutionising London’s East End.

“I found the whole concept (if there was one!) of The Shop, so fresh, so bold,” says local artist Natalie Chapman, “and such a pure expression of that raw, punk energy that Emin and Lucas embodied back then.”

In direct homage to the pair, Natalie approached friend and fellow artist On The Wing to see if she would be willing to team up for a takeover of the Seagull Gallery, Cardigan, this summer.

On The Wing says: “When Natalie asked me, I thought it was all these things: totally brilliant and bonkers and also completely unfeasible and ambitious… and frankly, hilarious.

“Emin and Lucas were not so much cutting edge, as cutting the edge. My ‘Edgy’ tote bag might jocularly testify to me being edgy once, but in truth I’ve never been remotely edgy or cool – I’m mostly just a daft, colourful clown, larking about. But I do thrive on bonkers and outlandish missions, so yes I was immediately game.”

Natalie says: “Despite Emin and Lucas being part of the Young British Artists group, their male counterparts were grabbing most of the world’s attention back then. The Shop was a largely spontaneous but seminal moment in both artists blazing a trail for themselves but also for all women artists since.”

The Shopping Shop will run from 1 to 31 August in Cardigan’s Seagull Gallery.