What to Know
- Aug. 1-31, 2018; closed Mondays
- The Standard DTLA
- Every item is for sale
Could you instantly name the softest item at your grocery store?
A box of tissues springs to mind first, or perhaps a leafy hunk of lettuce. Other super-soft buyables seen around a market could include muffins, whipped cream, and diapers. And, really, all the tissues and all the baked goods probably apply.
What, though, might a bodega look like if it wasn't stocked with drink-ready milk and crunch-ready potato chips but rather felt facsimiles?
As in felt, that soft-to-the-touch material often seen in toys, crafts, and quirky hats?
You can find out, starting on the first day of August 2018, when British artist Lucy Sparrow's "Sparrow Mart" debuts for a limited-time run at The Standard downtown.
This is no real-world store, so don't arrive looking to stock your pantry. It's a shop where absolutely everything is made out of felt, including the condiment bottles, the shampoo containers, the cans of beer, and the candy bars, too.
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And the 31,000-plus items?
They're all for sale, should you want a totally felted jar of mustard sitting on a shelf in your den.
Refrigeration, it almost needn't be said, is not required.
The "felt fantasyland" has already visited The Standard, High Line in New York City, to much deserved ballyhoo, but check it out: The Los Angeles version of "8 Till Late," the NYC version of the store, will be "four times bigger," so plan on some serious aisle browsing.
Shop assistants will be standing by to help, should you feel understandably overwhelmed. But here's one question pre-answered: Every felt artwork found on the grocery store shelves will be signed by the artist.
"Sparrow Mart" will keep open hours throughout August at the DTLA hotel, if you've been longing for a meeting point between our everyday world and a higher plane of the wonderfully peculiar and deeply unexpected.
It's the West Coast debut for "Sparrow Mart," adding yet another felt-fantastic layer to a fantastical, walk-inside artwork.
But don't go "shopping" on the first day of the week; the store will be hanging the "closed" sign every Monday during the installation's Aug. 1-31 run.
