P R E S E N T S
VENICE ■ THE GLOBAL GIFT SHOP
The Global Gift Shop: The Radical Politics of Affordable Art, curated by SHIM Art Network, with a micro-installation by resident artist Sam Heydt. The gift shop becomes the exhibition: on view at Imagoars, Cannaregio 1145, Venice, through October 18, 2026.
HEYDT ■ PRESS RELEASE
An exhibition that moves the gift shop from the exit to the center of the room, and asks what we buy when we buy art.
The Global Gift Shop: The Radical Politics of Affordable Art is in its final weeks at Imagoars in Cannaregio, Venice. Curated by SHIM Art Network, the exhibition inverts the primary tenets of the modern art object, making fine art small, beautiful, affordable, and simple to carry home.
My contribution, KITSCH, is a micro-installation exploring the history of the unique collectible: a half-room wrapped in sky, walls and floor alike, where fine art collides with the souvenir, the trinket, and the keepsake. It follows recent solo exhibitions at Aqua Art Miami and the Newport Art Museum.
At the center of the exhibition is the encapsulated artwork: a unique, archivally preserved original measuring 6.8 by 8.9 centimeters, machine-sealed and individually numbered to authenticate ownership.
| EXHIBITION | The Global Gift Shop: The Radical Politics of Affordable Art |
| VENUE | Imagoars Cultural Space, Cannaregio 1145, Venice |
| DATES | Through October 18, 2026 |
| CURATED BY | SHIM Art Network |
| PRESS VISITS | By appointment — samanthaheydt@gmail.com |
| HI-RES IMAGES | Available on request |
About the artist: Sam Heydt (b. 1986, New York City) is an American social practice and recycled media artist whose work is held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the State Hermitage Museum. Her work has previously been covered by The Guardian and PBS. More at samheydt.com.
I'd be glad to arrange interviews, walkthroughs, or high-resolution imagery before the exhibition closes.
Respectfully,
Sam HEYDT
Sam HEYDT
FOUR WALLS. ONE RADICAL IDEA.
THE EXHIBITION ■ WHO IS IN THE ROOM
Curated by SHIM Art Network. The concept originates with Art Pics Cards founder Gareb Shamus, whose experience building the community around Comic Con informs this attempt to bring new velocity and accessibility to an art market facing gallery closures and shrinking participation.
FOLLOW @SHIMARTNETWORK →THE INSTALLATION
KITSCH ■ HEYDT ■ IMAGOARS ■ CANNAREGIO 1145
« THE GALLERY WAS ALWAYS A SHOP. »
Walls and floor dissolve into one continuous sky. Against it, a dense salon hang of small works, collage, assemblage, and found object, turns the logic of the museum store back on itself. Nothing here sits behind glass. Everything asks to be chosen.
 |  |  |
Installation views, KITSCH at The Global Gift Shop, Imagoars, Venice, 2026. Courtesy the artist.
HIGH-RESOLUTION STILLS AND FILM AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.
SAMHEYDT.COM →HIGH-RESOLUTION STILLS AND FILM AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.
KITSCH | ART BODEGA
CONCEPT SHOP ■ NEWPORT ART MUSEUM ■ PLAY / PRETEND
KITSCH arrives in Venice from KITSCH | Art Bodega, the concept shop Sam Heydt built for Play / Pretend at the Newport Art Museum, where the Museum Store became the artwork: 531 works across 13 series, with The Semiotic Table of Idioms at its center.
« THE MUSEUM STORE BECOMES THE ARTWORK. »
KITSCH-ART-BODEGA.COM → @KITSCH_ART_BODEGA →ARTIST STATEMENT
THE EDGE IS CLOSER THAN WE THINK
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
« THE SHOP, NOW, BECOMES THE ARGUMENT. »
Heydt works inside this contradiction, not above it. Her practice does not observe the collapse from a safe distance — it enters the very marketplace that produced it. The object, she insists, was never innocent. It was always ideology wearing the shape of a souvenir. To hold this fact plainly, without flinching, is the beginning of her method.
In Venice, this method takes new form. The Global Gift Shop does not ask the viewer to contemplate from behind glass. It asks the viewer to choose, to carry, to own. Heydt’s contribution continues an inquiry she calls Verschränkung — entanglement — the recognition that the nursery and the ruin share a single architecture, that the dream and its cost cannot be separated. Here, the encapsulated object becomes both artifact and argument: small enough to fit in a pocket, exacting enough to indict the hand that takes it.
Heydt’s work offers no escape from the world it diagnoses — only a fragment of that world, sealed, numbered, and returned to you as evidence.
MORE WORK AT SAMHEYDT.COM →THE ENCAPSULATED ARTWORK
6.8 × 8.9 CM ■ MACHINE-SEALED ■ NUMBERED
« MADE TO BE OWNED, NOT JUST ADMIRED. »
A unique, archivally preserved original, sealed and numbered to authenticate ownership. The format carries artists working outside traditional gallery representation into the international exhibition circuit and onto Artsy.net, opening collecting to a broader, younger, and more diverse community.
FOLLOW @ARTPICSCARDS →THE GALLERY WALLS
MEXICO CITY ■ NEW YORK
003 #HASHTAG GALLERY MEXICO CITY From Mexico City to Cannaregio: a wall presented by #Hashtag Gallery. @HASHTAGGALLERY → | 004 ODETTA GALLERY NEW YORK A wall presented by ODETTA Gallery: ten artists, one sightline. @ODETTAGALLERY → |
THANK YOU
Thank you for looking. Press visits, walkthroughs, and high-resolution imagery available on request.
— Sam Heydt
— Sam Heydt
[art] samheydt.com ■ [studio] jane-street-studio.com ■ [gallery] kitsch-art-bodega.com
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS ■ HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN ■ STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM
THE GLOBAL GIFT SHOP
IMAGOARS CULTURAL SPACE · CANNAREGIO 1145 · VENICE
THROUGH OCTOBER 18, 2026 · MAP
IMAGOARS CULTURAL SPACE · CANNAREGIO 1145 · VENICE
THROUGH OCTOBER 18, 2026 · MAP
SHIM ■ THE EDGE ■ HEYDT ■ ARTPICS ■ #HASHTAG ■ ODETTA
Double-click to edit...
