A great article in the Guardian Newspaper on Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas opening of The Shop in the 1990's 

Tracey Emin

It was 1992, and Sarah Lucas and I were on the hunt for a studio. She'd been sharing one with her boyfriend, Gary Hume, but they'd split up. Although I had no money, Sarah had just sold some work to Charles Saatchi for £3,000. "I don't really want to be an artist," I told her, "but I would come to a studio to write, make tea and chat." She said: "You're on." We decided to look around the East End. Back then, nearly every shop on Brick Lane was boarded up – everywhere was, in fact. We looked at each other and said: "It'd be good to have a shop." We knew what each other meant – not a studio, but an actual shop. Once we had the idea, it took us just two days to find one. There's this great photo of us down Bethnal Green Road, drinking a weird East End drink, port and lemon perhaps, toasting our shop. We moved in on 2 January 1993.