The Discount Store as Art Is Right on Target

Back in 1970 when Walker Art Center in Minneapolis commissioned artist Red Grooms to do a work titled “The Discount Store,” middle America was flocking, pink hair curlers and all, to cut-rate outlets. The places had a certain carnival charm, with their bright lights and popcorn booths.

To research the piece, Grooms visited several Target stores near the chain’s home base of Minneapolis and then, with a 12-person team, set about constructing a multimedia, walk-in work populated by garish salesclerks and dopey shoppers.

It hit the bull’s-eye.

“Target executives could see the humor in it and could see that it captured the essence of the early discount stores--the excitement, the fun, the goofiness,” said George Hite, a Target vice president.

So taken has the company been with Grooms and his “sculpto-pictoramas” that, when Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art decided recently to mount a Grooms exhibit at the Temporary Contemporary in Little Tokyo, Target Stores became the lead underwriter, providing a $100,000 grant.

The exhibit, which runs through June 29, has been drawing record crowds. Visitors who step into “The Discount Store” are invariably drawn to the Doughnut Lady, a larger-than-life creature whose outstretched hand holds a chocolate doughnut. Nearby, patient customers, one with a pet dog, stand in the checkout line.

The exhibit heads next to Grooms’ home town of Nashville, where the Tennessee State Museum will also receive a $100,000 grant from Target Stores, a division of Dayton Hudson.

Target outlets have become much more upscale since 1970, when the chain started to upgrade its merchandise and appearance. Its 226 stores, 32 of them in Southern California, adhere to the discount philosophy of high volume and low margin pricing, but present their wares in a department store-like atmosphere.

Some elements of the old style remain, though.

“The doughnuts have left, but the popcorn is still around,” Hite said.