Supreme has a long and storied history of artistic collaborations, having teamed up with the likes of Damien Hirst, Larry Clark, KAWS, Peter Saville, and Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s estates in the 24 years since it was founded. And that’s not to mention its signature box logo bears more than a passing resemblance to seminal works by cultural commentator Barbara Kruger (who, last year, staged her own ‘Supreme’ drop in New York).
Next to join the ranks of Supreme’s ever-growing list of collaborators is photographer Nan Goldin, whose gritty, intimate images of friends and acquaintances living on the fringes of American society are set to appear on a number of t-shirts, hoodies, coach jackets, and skate decks. Photographs chosen include Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC (1991), and Self portrait as a dominatrix, Boston (1977).
Goldin left home at 14 to join a commune in Massachusetts where she began documenting the day-to-day happenings of its school. Later moving to New York city, the photographer began documenting her life before showing the resulting work in NY nightclubs: perhaps most famously, those living in the grips of domestic abuse, alcohol and drug addiction, and the 1980s AIDS crisis as part of series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1985).
The photographer now lives between New York and Berlin and last year began campaigning against opioid manufacturers the Sackler family and the museums, galleries and institutions that accept donations from them, after successfully overcoming addictions to heroin, Fentanyl and OxyContin (as detailed in an open letter published on artforum.com). Whether a percentage of the profits from this particular drop will be donated to incentive P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) remains to be seen. Over to you, Supreme.
The collection launches in-store and online in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Paris on March 29th, and in Japan on March 31st.