Welcome Digest [12.17.25]
Gift guides, Whitney Biennial lineup, rare Elliot Smith recordings, and more
Welcome To December 17th
Today’s Important Headlines
💭 The Whitney just announced its most careful Biennial yet
The 2026 Whitney Biennial lineup spans 56 artists across generations and geographies, framing itself as a quiet, connective portrait of modern life. But in a moment defined by cultural repression and institutional retreat, and especially after the suspension of the Whitney Independent Study Program for 2026, restraint looks less subtle than strategic.
🎄 Best holiday gift guides on Substack
For anyone scrambling for the perfect last-minute gift for that esoteric person in your life, here are some of our favorite Substack wish guides that actually feel human: thoughtfully curated picks like vintage silver initial signet rings, niche magazine racks, first-edition books, and dozens more.
Picks include guides from: Internet Princess, A Continuous Lean, Weird Medieval Guys, Le Secret Club, Immaculate Taste, Upstream, Esoteric It Girl, and Early Bird.
💿 TikTok user @absurdistgap shares rare Elliott Smith live recordings
Pulling from her extensive collection of live CD rips, footage from five performances, and late-90s email trades with other fans, @absurdistgap shares an extremely rare set of live recordings, including covers of songs by Built to Spill, The Beatles, Oasis, Nico, and many others.
🚫 Rick Owens and NYFW ban fur
As a move toward ethical sourcing, Rick Owens follows NYFW’s decision to ban fur for the upcoming fashion week, and commits to eliminating fur from his brand entirely going forward. The decision comes after a five-day protest campaign led by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) outside stores in NYC and LA, signaling monumental reform from some of fashion’s biggest players.
🖼️ The Louvre can’t catch a break
After a year marked by a major heist and mounting concerns over the museum’s structural integrity, the Louvre is shuttered yet again, this time due to ongoing worker strikes. At this point, all eyes are on Wednesday, if the doors actually reopen.
Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)
Moodboard 008
Today’s inspiration supplement. Click through to view.
From The Archive
An extra piece of content from the Welcome Archive for Magazine subscribers only.
100 Years Later is an ongoing object based art series by Japanese artist Maico Akiba, first shown in the early 2010s, where everyday contemporary items are treated as if they were excavated a century in the future.
Akiba applies a custom aging process that mimics rust, corrosion, water damage, dirt, and moss, transforming objects like electronics and personal belongings into archaeological looking artifacts.
The work reframes modern consumer goods as future debris, focusing on technological obsolescence and the gap between how objects are made and how long they endure.
