Holiday gift shopping? It's chaos. The Grove the Black Friday? Good luck to find a parking lot – it's a two -hour wait just to sneak in a place. What about large area stores? Just not. If you are looking for something less stressful and more creative, there is a better option: Sunday magazineSandwich between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (this year, he fell on December 1).
Since 2017, the Musum Store on Sunday has become a global event, bringing together more than 2,100 museum stores in the world – including 28 here in the County of Los Angeles – for a day of discounts, special events and gifts with the purchase (the offers are varied, so check with the stores to discover what they have).
“Not only do you buy something special and different, but you also support an institution, because the money immediately goes back to the museum,” explains Maria Kwong, director of retail companies at the Japanese American national museum, or Janm, and a member of the Store Association Museum, the Industry Group that started the initiative.
Museum stores have gone a long way from standing stops for postcards and key channels. Now, these are dynamic spaces where art, culture and commerce intersect, offering everything, artistic collaborations exclusive to fun and significant gifts linked to the exhibitions of the museum. Take Janm, for example, where you can buy a set of monopoly on the theme of Godzilla ($ 45) or a set of chess designed by the late artist born in Los Angeles Isamu Noguchi ($ 590).
This year, Janm takes advantage of the museum store on Sunday by organizing a book launch for “Seattle Samurai: a Cartoonist's Perspective of the Japanese American Experience”, a tribute to the work of the designer Sam Goto written by the artist's daughter.
At the Broad Museum, the director of retail operations, Rob Hudson, said that those who buy in the gift shop can “bring a piece from the museum”. Visitors can find a playful neon by a smiling character from artist Kenny Scharf ($ 399), whose work is presented in the Broad collection. Or there is a catalog of Joseph Beuys ($ 49.95) produced by The Broad for their big exhibition of the famous German artist's work in the 20th century, as well as articles “Unlimited Edition” such as a felt postcard ($ 20).
Getty is another excellent stop in your vacation gift hunt. During a recent visit, buyers admired medieval astrolabes – machines based on multifunctional stars that have been used by astronomers to determine things and latitude – and other astronomical manuscripts in “Lumen: The Art and Science of Light”, temporary exhibition on the first explorations of astronomers in the functioning of light. A few steps away, an animated crowd has explored gifts inspired by astronomy in the dedicated exhibition shop (Le Getty has five stores on its campus), including a replica of $ 50 to bring back the science of stars with you.
The other participating member institutions include the Grammy Museum Store, the Library store and the USC Pacific Asia Museum store, the latter offers 20% reduction to members of any museum museum on Sunday. The Museum of Contemporary Art promotes its recent collaboration with PF Candle Co. and Los Angeles County Museum of Art will include 20% reduction on personalized prints, which extends to online purchases.
