SUPREME – Resampling the World
Visiting time: ●●● Average (45 minutes)With its white letters on a bright-red background, the Supreme brand is a familiar and sought-after logo for lots of young people. For older generations, though, the Supreme universe of ‘drops’, ‘camps’, ‘resellers’, ‘hypebeasts’, ‘logomania’ and ‘collaborations’ is likely to be a completely unknown world. Design Museum Den Bosch is presenting the first museum exhibition devoted to the Supreme brand.
The red and white logo of the hip skate brand Supreme can be found not only on T-shirts and skateboards, but also on everything from folding chairs and ping-pong tables to ballpoint pens, Rietveld chairs, beach chairs, hatchets, Panton chairs and even a Meissen porcelain angel. At first sight, where Supreme chooses to place its logo seems totally random. But whatever object the brand happens to appropriate, you can guarantee that thousands of fans all over the world will be ready and waiting every Thursday for the latest product to drop and invariably sell out. Whether it’s an ashtray, a blow-up mattress or a Porceleyne Fles beer mug, if the Supreme logo is on it, it can be sold and resold to avid collectors at huge prices. All of which makes the Supreme brand a cultural phenomenon that invites us to reflect on our consumer society, the power of brands, youth culture and commerce.
The exhibition SUPREME – Resampling the World invites you into the Supreme universe. You will find over 250 iconic objects from this famous, not to say infamous brand while also discovering its origins. You can immerse yourself in the Supreme phenomenon and find out how it achieved such worldwide fame and artistic and commercial success. How do objects take on new meaning through the addition of the Supreme logo, and how do they then appeal to a wide, diverse and above all young audience? This is the first time a museum has turned its attention to Supreme, and never before have so many of the brand’s objects been displayed in a single exhibition. In this way, we explore how Supreme manages to make existing products attractive, and looks at the lessons to be learned – by designers and critical consumers alike – from this twenty-first century mode of ‘upcycling’.
Design Museum Den Bosch has deliberately opted to stage the exhibition without the collaboration of the Supreme brand.
