Point of Sale

In 1998 Rei Kawakubo of Comme de Garcon invited me to make an installation at her flagship store in Tokyo. After some hours of looking at the space i made a small sketch on a scrap of paper, half an idea that i didnt think was very inspiring. I came back to continue working on the idea and the owners of the space had already had the sketch made up into blue prints and did not seem to want to discuss the idea further. They had made up their minds to go ahead with the idea anyway and i was unable to persuade them to stop.

Back in the 1970 s I worked for a short time at a screen printing company where they were making signs they called ‘point of sale’, something which i did not fully understand at the time. What was point of sale ? What was the point of selling, in fact what was the point of anything at all, the point of existence perhaps.

The eight sets of automatic glass sliding doors were installed overnight by a large very efficient team, cutting into the marble stone floor to professionally set the glass doors into position. The opening of the artwork coincided with Comme de Garcons latest autumn collection of clothing. The original idea was the doors would open like a wave in front of the customer or consumer creating a perfect enveloping space that would surround the visitor delivering them beautifully and elegantly into the interior space. However the timing of the doors, due to the close spacing, tended to trap people inside, causing an awkward disruptive spectacle that was embarrassing (at least from my perspective). The doors were removed six weeks later.

Tokyo 1998