P R E S E N T S

NEWPORT ART MUSEUM ■ PLAY / PRETEND

The Newport Art Museum presents KITSCH | Art Bodega — a concept shop by Sam Heydt. The Museum Store becomes the artwork: open to the public May 7, 2026 – January 31, 2027.

HEYDT  ■  PRESS INVITATION

Dear Editor,

For your arts desk: an installation asking what play teaches us about ideology — sited, pointedly, in a museum's gift shop.

I'd like to invite you to preview KITSCH | Art Bodega, my site-specific contribution to Play / Pretend, at the Newport Art Museum. Rather than occupying the gallery, the installation takes over the Museum Store — an immersive environment of 531 works across 13 series, where fine art collides with functional design and visitors are invited not merely to observe but to handle, choose, and desire.

At its center is The Semiotic Table of Idioms — more than 300 English idioms rendered as literal sculptural objects and organized as a periodic table. A broken record. A fork in the road. The world's tiniest violin.

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 ahead of the opening.

Respectfully,
Sam HEYDT

THE SEMIOTIC TABLE OF IDIOMS

SIGNIFIER ■ SIGNIFIED ■ COLLAPSED

« AN AUTOPSY OF LANGUAGE ITSELF. »

300+ idioms rendered as literal sculptures, organized as a periodic table — a taxonomic reversal that reveals how dead language is ingrained into cultural ideology. Each sculpture collapses the distinction between signifier and signified.

AR INSTALLATIONS

AUGMENTED REALITY ■ MEMBIT ■ REAL SPACE

Augmented reality layers — mapped onto physical assemblages — merge real and virtual experiences, destabilizing representation and denaturalizing norms.
ON-SITE AR — download the free Membit app (iOS · Android) to unlock the augmented-reality layer mapped throughout the installation.

SERIES & COLLECTIONS

13 SERIES ■ 531 WORKS ■ TAP ANY TILE

EXHIBITION CATALOG

THANK YOU

Thank you for looking. Press previews, walkthroughs, and high-resolution imagery available on request.
— 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