Not a holiday gift guide

Have you ever gifted art?

I have holiday gift guide fatigue. I’m not sure I’ve ever bought anything from a gift guide that arrived in my inbox. But this brings me to my question: Have you ever gifted art? Have you ever received art as a gift?

For me, art is so personal. It’s hard to gift someone a piece not knowing if they would love it (to live with art, you must love it—my first rule of collecting). Unless you know the exact artist on someone’s wishlist, it’s better to buy something that can be returned. Or, at the least, tucked away. Maybe a DIY coupon that allows them to pick out any artwork they like in a certain price range?

I did receive a painting as a gift once—and it’s the favourite gift I’ve ever received and my favourite piece of art in my collection. So take everything I said above with a grain of salt. In April 2020, Keiran painted me a nocturne on the night of my birthday and gave it to me as soon as it dried. This was before we started dating! The gesture continues to fill my heart. We were on opposite sides of the city; everyone was in lockdown, but we were optimistic—just as the city lights continued to shine and the moon rose. It’s hanging right next to me as I write this. I never get tired of looking at it.

April 11 (for TD), Keiran Brennan Hinton, 2020

Here are a few art updates this week:

• Azza El Siddique is speaking at The Met about the new exhibition Africa and Byzantium on Friday, December 1st, at 6 PM. Free and open to the public!

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  A post shared by @_az__za_

• Speaking of Azza…her booth with Bradley Ertaskiran Art at Art Basel is one of my most anticipated! I’ll be writing more about the Miami fairs next week.

• My friend Molly is in Dawson City and shared photos from the Big Rock Candy Mountain’s exhibition at the Klondike Institute of Art & Culture. It was so refreshing to see art outside my typical geographical constraints. I immediately went down a rabbit hole about Big Rock Candy Mountain (great name). I love taking a subject like candy—something genuinely interesting to children—and building an art practice around it. I think it’s such a fertile ground and invites children to innovate and create naturally.

Initiated by Reed H. Reed and Hannah Jickling, Big Rock Candy Mountain is an artist-run taste-making think-tank where artists and children explore themes such as: pop aesthetics and marketing; kids and capitalism; adult/child power relations; food security and the dynamics of an international economy. Within public education, Big Rock Candy Mountain proposes the school as a kind of candy factory. At Hätrʼunohtän zho/Robert Service School specifically, artists and children ask - Who decides the ingredients of soda, the shape of its bottles, the persuasion of its advertising and the after-life of its waste?

yukonsova

A post shared by @yukonsova

• I attended the book launch for Anna Julia Stainsby’s debut novel, The Afterpains, this week. I’m a few chapters into it and enjoying it. There’s so much electricity to publishing a book—the amount of work, risk, and vulnerability. Not unlike presenting an art exhibit. Keep your eyes out for The Afterpains at bookstores in early March—or pre-order it now.

• A nice sentiment as we move into December:

  2022dirt

  

  A post shared by @2022dirt

Talk soon! Tatum