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88 Consuming Media

and humorous costumes smiling and making faces into the camera. Other photo-
graphs show tourist attractions, including exotic people from far-off places. A mural
of these photographs, all taken by people working at Fuji’s Photo Gang, covers three
of the walls in the shop. An employee explained the display: ‘Our customers aren’t
pros, and they want to see pictures they can relate to … Not to mention any names,’
he said in an obvious reference to the Kodak store, ‘but snow-covered mountain tops
aren’t what the typical Smith family is interested in.’ The photographs also reinforce
the message that in this shop there is a ‘team’ or ‘gang’ (‘Foto-gänget’), a group of
friends who work together – important to the employee’s identity – whose cama-
raderie is an important ingredient in customer service. The two shops, with their
different displays of photographs, also present the consumer with different models of
photographic practice. On the one hand, in the Kodak Image Centre we find a stan-
dardized uniformity that also suggests uniform standards of products and service, tied
to the image and reputation of a transnational company and its trademark. At Fuji’s
Photo Gang, on the other hand, a transnational trademark is mixed with signs of the
local and a more personal, varied, even homespun interpretation of how to address
the consumer’s photographic needs.
In the Gallerix shop, these distinctions are evident within the same space. The
name ‘Gallerix’ is a clear signal of what the consumer will find. In a ‘gallery’ one
expects to find art on sale, but here the term is given a twist toward popular culture’s
visual aesthetic. The name links art and mass media, the visual forms found in adver-
tising, comics and film (‘pix’, ‘Asterix’, ‘comix’, etc.), communicating that Gallerix
offers art for everyone. This mass art is nevertheless arranged according to a clear
hierarchy of economic and aesthetic worth. Outside the shop, piles of greeting cards
are arranged on two collapsible tables. These follow the conventions for ‘bargain’
goods, accessible for passers-by who pick up and sort through the cards. This,
together with the fact that the tables are set up on the outside, the wrong side, as it
were, of the show window, signals that these are the least exclusive of the shop’s cards,
probably last year’s stock. The consumer will find better and newer stuff by stepping
inside.
Inside the shop, one finds greeting cards on the many rotating display racks and
on permanent racks along the walls. The cards are arranged not according to price
but according to function and theme. Nearest the door, accessible to the occasional
tourist, is the shop’s rather meagre selection of postcards. Further in are groups of
birthday cards and other special occasion cards. Cards for children, and cards that
play music and joke cards are displayed thematically. There is little distinction here
between high and popular cultures; regardless of price, the greeting card display
suggests that this is merely a consumption item.
Among the prints and posters, however, there is a clear hierarchy of display; at the
same time the shop strives for a mass effect in its visual presentation of goods.
Pictures cover virtually every surface, often in multiple versions, if not of the same
image, then by the same artist or of a similar theme. Smaller pictures are displayed
on the lower shelves, and larger formats further up on the walls. Artists and pictures