At a wedding in 2021, Natasha Stagg received as a party favor a plastic lighter emblazoned with the newlyweds’ names and the word “forever.” The idea, presumably, was that the couple would be together “forever.” But also, Stagg observed, lighters take “forever” to empty and no one is really together “forever.” Days after I put down Artless: Stories, 2019–2023, Stagg’s new collection, publishing next week, this is the image that haunted me.
Whether we like it or not, there is messaging associated with everything we wear and everything we make and everything we do and—certainly—everything we post online. Even if we actively resist the impulse to brand ourselves, that, too, registers as a choice of self-presentation. The arts today are defined by a reflexive, self-referential quality that makes it nearly impossible to separate the art from the artist, or, rather, their brand identity.
