Visit time: 30 - 60 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. Design Museum Den Bosch has deliberately opted to stage the exhibition without the collaboration of 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.
In the exhibition Supreme – Resampling the World, you step into the world of Supreme. You will see more than 250 iconic Supreme objects and discover the history of this famous and infamous skate brand. You will also delve deeper into the Supreme phenomenon and see how it gained worldwide fame and artistic and commercial success. How does the addition of the Supreme logo give objects new meaning and how can they then appeal to a broad, diverse and, above all, young audience? Never before has a museum focused on Supreme, and never before have so many objects from the brand been on display in a single exhibition. The museum explores how Supreme manages to make existing products attractive and looks at what lessons we, both designers and critical consumers, can learn from this 21st-century approach to “upcycling”.
This exhibition was curated by Bao Yao Fei. The exhibition design was created by Bart Guldemond. Graphic design was provided by Sean van den Steenhoven. The campaign image was designed by Lesley Moore.
