Page 102 - Consuming Media

01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 89

that are known to sell well are prominently displayed. One example is the popular
artist Lasse Åberg, referred to in the Gallerix catalogue as the ‘in-house artist’, whose
popular images of Mickey Mouse appear in every possible format throughout the
shop, including a single large framed print on the top shelf. The wall space directly
behind the counter, referred to by the shop manager as the ‘gold wall’, is reserved for
the most expensive framed and matted prints. Consistent with their presentation as
exclusive works, these are single images that are not displayed in other formats else-
where in the shop. The juxtaposition of this display with the shop’s framing service
underscores the singular quality of these pictures. At the other end of the scale of
quality are the mass-produced posters, sorted under thematic categories such as ‘Kids
& Animals’, ‘Music & Movies’, which can be seen only by leafing through them in
the large flip files mounted along the back wall of the shop.
On the one hand, quality is associated with exclusivity, prints available in smaller
editions (although they still number in the thousands), displayed as single framed
and matted paintings. On the other hand, quality in this context resides in the tech-
niques of reproduction, and not in any assumed artistic or aesthetic value. The work
of the unknown company name Joadoor hangs on the ‘gold wall’ side by side with a
print of a familiar van Gogh painting. Most Gallerix prints are representational, often
in popular and easily identifiable art historical styles (Impressionist, Surrealism, and
so on). Non-figurative art, considered difficult and inaccessible to a broad public, is
nevertheless present as what could be called ‘abstract – light’, colourful, nearly
abstract pictures by Gallerix’s own ‘trend-artists’. The shop manager half jokingly
referred to the accessibility of the shop’s art as ‘prints for the people’. Benjamin
foresaw how mass reproduction brought the work of art closer to a broader public, at
the same time that it broke loose from the fabric of tradition, with its dependence on
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the original as unique. As a work of art becomes widely available, it loses its authen-
ticity, its ‘aura’. With this move into the domain of mass culture, the work is divorced
from its function and value as a ritual object, and is transformed into an object for
display. The work of art has become an object of consumption. In Gallerix, not only
individual works of art, but also pictures that paraphrase other known works or styles
superimpose Benjamin’s thesis onto the visual landscape of late modernity.
The pictures in Gallerix continually refer to other pictures within the shop as we
have just described, but also to pictures found throughout the shopping centre and
in the media at large. This intertextual phenomenon, the meeting and mixing of
visual images, is at the same time intermedial. The pictures that can be purchased
here, to send to a friend or to hang on a wall, often refer to other media. Pictures of
the young magician Harry Potter, first seen on the covers of the best-selling books
and then in film, soon showed up on posters and cards available in Gallerix. The tele-
vision cartoon figures from the Simpsons and South Street, popular among school-
children, can be purchased as cards and posters. The same is true of popular singers
such as Britney Spears, and film stars such as Keanu Reeves from the Matrix films,
which in turn can be rented on video. Although these intermedial references are most
evident among Gallerix’s posters, certain media figures have also ascended into the

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