Eulogy for The Multiple Store

Ann Shafer

Recently I wrote about editions and meta prints focusing on two works: Bill Thompson’s Edition and Fiona Banner’s Book 1/1. The latter work was published by the artist and the Multiple Store, which is no longer in business. In fact, finding an image of Book 1/1 for the post necessitated digging into the Wayback Machine run by web.archive.org with which one can find archived web sites. Very useful.
 
The Multiple Store was founded in 1998 by Nicholas Sharp and Sally Townsend (it shuttered in 2016). According to the founders: “Our aims were to commission new work by some of the best contemporary British artists, to encourage a culture of collecting by selling our editions as inexpensively as possible; and to provide opportunities for artists to explore new materials and processes.” That’s a mission I can get behind.
 
Back when Ben Levy and I ran the BMA’s Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair, we searched for possible participants at several print fairs that occur in New York in the fall. Ben and I were eager to bring in vendors that made or published the works they had on offer. That way, the public would have the opportunity to speak directly with the people who made the art while fulfilling the museum’s goal to educate people. At one of the New York fairs, the Editions and Artist Books Fair, we had the pleasure of meeting Nicholas Sharp who was showing the multiples published by the Multiple Store. Nick was charming and devoted to his mission, and we loved the objects they published. Ben and I tried our best to convince him to come to Baltimore for our Print Fair, but we could never make it work, and Baltimore missed out.
 
The Multiple Store published intriguing multiples—the sculptural version of print editions. One stand-out object was a kaleidoscope by Yinka Shonibare MBE who is best known for his tableaux featuring mannequins dressed in western costumes made out of Dutch wax-printed cotton that appears to be African in style. That substitution plays into Shonibare’s investigation of the tangled economic and political interrelationships between Africa and Europe.
 
For the Multiple Store, Shonibare created a kaleidoscope, a nod to nineteenth-century Victoriana. The exterior is decorated with a pattern echoing the Dutch fabrics he uses in his larger works. And that’s where the subtleness ends. The shiny brass top, where a viewer looks into the kaleidoscope, is in the form of the tip of a phallus, all bright and shiny. The image that is splintered within is an edited version of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in which the figure of Venus has been replaced with a rather well-endowed Black male nude. It’s a peep show, if you will, and a total turn-about of the male gaze. Shonibare said of the work: “I intended this piece as both playful and serious: it looks like an adult sex toy, but it is also a serious comment on patriarchy, and the objectification of the female body in the media, by what film theorist Laura Mulvey called the ‘male gaze.’ Kaleidoscope was meant as ‘one for the ladies’…though I think it may appeal to some gentlemen too.”
 
I was so sorry Nick felt he had to close the Multiple Store. As it was a side project for the lawyer, perhaps one can understand. But still.
 
Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962)
Published by The Multiple Store
Kaleidoscope, 2014
Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil
80 x 80 x 270 mm. (10 ½ x 3 x 3 in.)
 
Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962)
How to Blow up Two Heads at Once (Ladies), 2006.
Two life-size mannequins, two guns, Dutch wax-printed cotton, shoes, and leather riding boots
Overall 63 x 96: 1/2 x 48 inches, each figure: 63 x 61 x 48 inches
Collection of Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA.
Photo by Stephen White, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962). Published by The Multiple Store. Kaleidoscope, 2014. Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil. 80 x 80 x 270 mm. (10 ½ x 3 x 3 in.).

Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962). Published by The Multiple Store. Kaleidoscope, 2014. Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil. 80 x 80 x 270 mm. (10 ½ x 3 x 3 in.).

Ben Levy enjoying Shonibare's Kaleidoscope at the Editions and Artists Books fair, 2014.

Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962). How to Blow up Two Heads at Once (Ladies), 2006. Two life-size mannequins, two guns, Dutch wax-printed cotton, shoes, and leather riding boots. Overall 63 x 96: 1/2 x 48 inches, each figure: 63 x 61 x 48 inches. Collection of Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA. Photo by Stephen White, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.