Art is often still seen as something elitist, and buying art even more so.

The image of the gallery visit persists, in which interested mere mortals are ignored or, when naively asked about the price of the works presented, are piqued and looked at by the notoriously bad-tempered staff and punished with silence.

The art market in general is considered non-transparent – ​​a price is rarely posted next to the work, and high-priced art in particular is not sold to anyone who would like to have it.

A gallery owner thinks very carefully about where his artist's work should be placed and which collectors may acquire it.

The prices vary: a wealthy collector usually has to pay more than a less affluent but all the more prestigious museum.

If a work hangs there, the artist's reputation and market prices increase, which is why works are often given away to museums.

Whoever is allowed to buy art in a certain price segment and why is subject to a complex network of relationships, entanglements and strategic decisions that are difficult to understand from the outside – and often enough not from the inside either.

But there is another way, simpler, more open, more transparent.

This is currently being shown by a number of young initiatives with their different approaches.

Just as all areas of trade were expanded into digital, there were also online platforms for art early on, where you could buy everything from art prints to signed editions and one-offs.

But what all these platforms lacked – despite the sophisticated magazine formats in which the artists were presented – was the necessary and expected mediation.

Because when you buy works, whether they cost 50 or 50,000 euros, you want to be able to tell a story about how the work of art found its way into your own four walls.

Art often only becomes art through its special context, and this also applies to its acquisition.

The Super Super Markt, which Julius Jacobi runs with former gallery director Rory Kirk-Duncan, provides this context.

With their program they want to appeal to younger people in particular who are interested in art and culture, but who don't have the right entry point, who don't know where to start and who don't feel invited by the classic gallery system, where prices often start in the high four-digit range.

The Super Super Markt, which was founded by Jacobi in 2021, sees itself as an art association.

For an annual contribution of 50 euros you can become a member and get a so-called super gift.

Based on the annual gifts of the art associations, which are now very much in demand.

This year the artist Michail Pirgelis has contributed a super gift edition, normally represented by the highly acclaimed Sprüth Magers gallery.

In addition, as a member you get an option to purchase the works of various artists who have been carefully selected by Jacobi and Kirk-Duncan.

Several editions by Michel Majerus, who died in 2002, were for sale only recently.

Most of the artists presented at the Super Super Market are no longer at the very beginning of their careers.

Many have already exhibited internationally and are also represented by galleries.

For example, one can easily acquire the photographs of Joanna Piotrowska, who was born in 1985 and have already been shown this year at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, at the ARCH in Athens and at the Lyon Biennale.

Or the blurry paintings of the young Swiss artist Manuel Stehli.

The price range in which one moves is between 500 and 14,000 euros.