Eleni T. Zaharopoulos / Stephanie Routier
LONG ISLAND CITY — Get ready to haggle.
An art gallery in the neighborhood will host a pop-up thrift shop where none of the goods will have a fixed priced — with customers expected to bargain for their buys instead.
Artist Eleni T. Zaharopoulos will host the Art Basel Thrift Store (and Gallery) from Aug. 5 to 13 at Flux Factory, where she’ll be peddling art supplies, furniture, clothes, jewelry, toys and other secondhand fare.
The shop — which will also include a gallery show displaying works by Zaharopoulos and six other artists — is meant to mark the end of her year-long residency at Flux Factory and will be part retail experience, part performance art.
“It’s a haggling, name-your-price thrift store being run by me and my alter ego,” the artist said.
Zaharopoulos, who splits her time between Queens and Detroit, said the project was inspired by a quirky antique store she visits in Michigan where the owner asks shoppers to name what they think each item is worth.
“It’s just loaded with stuff. Nothing has a price,” she said.
“The kind of work I do is usually just inspired by practical [things],” Zaharopoulos added. “Who doesn’t like a thrift store?”
To coincide with the pop-up, Flux Factory’s gallery space will be showing a group exhibition featuring works that originally began as abandoned art projects.
The eight artists featured in the show swapped the unfinished pieces with one another and then completed each other’s works — some of which will be up for bidding during an auction and potluck dinner at the space on Aug. 10.
Zaharopoulos said much of her thrift shop’s inventory is made up of items she’s been collecting throughout the year, plus things that family and friends were looking to get rid of.
During the last two days of the store’s operation on Aug. 12 and 13, everything that’s left will be included in a “going out of business sale,” where she’ll accept any price customers offer.
“Everything must go,” Zaharopoulos said. “So no price will be turned down.”
For more information and for the thrift store’s operating hours, visit Flux Factory’s website.
