NEW YORK, N.Y..- Police broke into Soho gallery Laz Emporium last week when they saw on passing what they took to be an unconscious woman slumped over a table in the locked-up gallery. They hastily broke down the door to go to her aid, only to find that what they had seen was in fact an art installation entitled ‘Kristina’ which had been commissioned by the gallery’s owner Steve Lazarides.




The realistic sculptural piece is by American artist Mark Jenkins. It is made from packing tape and foam filler and depicts the gallery owner’s sister, Kristina, passed out with her face in a plate of soup! Steve Lazarides commissioned the talking-point piece to sit at any dining table they were selling in his new gallery and shop, Laz Emporium on Soho’s Lexington Street, which he opened in October 2021 to showcase and sell his art and countercultural design and interiors pieces in addition to work by high profile international artists.

“Hannah who was working in the gallery that day had just locked up and gone upstairs to make a cup of tea,” says Steve. “She came down to find the door off its hinges and two confused police officers!”

Steve Lazarides is a curator, photographer, creative and collector who has helped to massively popularise street and underground art. He began as a photographer documenting the youth and club scenes for magazines such as The Face in the late 1990s before famously working with street artist Banksy, first as his official photographer and driver and later as his gallerist and agent. Steve opened his first London gallery in 2006. He launched his new venture, Laz Emporium, in October 2021 to showcase and sell his own distinctive art and countercultural design pieces and radical craft made by Steve’s team in Bristol in addition to ever-changing work by high profile international artists.

The gallery is currently hosting ‘Yule by Sorry’, a show offering ‘off key Christmas fayre to offend the in laws’ including art and prints by Lazarides and guest artists including Adam Neate, Teach and recent discovery Jacob Taylor, giant crackers containing surprise prints by different artists and a five foot long subway car to graffiti at home! The show is open until 24th December.