Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Lists Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

Cj Henry, Price Laddering and a New Collecting Model for the Kidulting Economy

With offerings that include $1 beads and five-figure drawings, the Australian artist is blurring the boundaries between retail and the art market.

Summer exhibitions often come and go without much notice, but in the middle of August in New York, a pop-up show at Salon 94 managed to capture the attention of both the art world and the broader public with a playful commercial strategy that made art feel accessible and enjoyable to visitors of all ages and backgrounds. Staged in the sumptuous Salon 94 townhouse, Cj Hendry’s “Pastel” was simultaneously an art exhibition, hands-on installation and concept shop.

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

At its center was a large pool filled with pastel-colored beads drawn from Hendry’s visual universe: flowers, smiley faces, Juju and Balloon Dog. Visitors could select beads and assemble them into bracelets, necklaces or charms, taking home a piece of Hendry’s artistic universe for just a few dollars. Drawings, editions and branded objects were also up for sale alongside her trademark caps, T-shirts, jewelry trunks, leather trays and acrylic keyrings. There was something for every budget, from $1 for a single bead and $50 for a bucket to $55 for a T-shirt and $499 for editions. Original drawings ran into the thousands.

The Australian artist first made her name with hyperrealistic drawings of familiar objects—paint smears, flowers, luxury goods and everyday materials—rendered with such extreme precision that they became uncanny optical illusions. Playing with sensory overload, excess and spectacle, she pushes realism or something even better to an extreme that has proven extremely successful with broader audiences. This strategy extends into her immersive environments, in which audiences can move, touch, choose, taste, collect or otherwise participate. Her practice operates within a Warholian logic, combining a Duchampian conceptual approach with an engagement with, and critique of, consumer and pop culture. At its core is a continuous testing of the boundaries between art object and commodity, and between retail and the art market.

Hendry does not come from a traditional art background, having worked in fashion before becoming a full-time artist. (She was once employed by Chanel and had a strong interest in luxury goods, which have shown up frequently as subjects in her work.) Even now, she rejects rigid classifications, embracing this inherent ambiguity as a source of fluid hybridity and adaptability across contexts. “I feel like I’ve always been a commercial artist, so this isn’t different in any way. For me, this makes sense in my art practice,” Hendry told Observer when we spoke after the closing of the Salon 94 pop-up. “I don’t have an art degree. I’m very inexperienced, but I know that when I go to a museum or a gallery, I want to feel that the space is generous. I want people to come away with something. It doesn’t need to be expensive, but just a portion of that moment that can live on a little bit longer.”

Another recent “concept,” as Hendry describes these........

© Observer