Supreme news

05/16/2022

Roy DeCarava/Supreme

American artist Roy DeCarava was born in Harlem in 1919. DeCarava came to artistic maturity during the post WWII era – during a flourishing of art, music, dance, fashion, theater, literature, scholarship and culture. For over 60 years, DeCarava created tonal, evocative photographs of life in his native city and beyond. "DeCarava's work is itself the best of both worlds,” wrote Roberta Smith, “visually rigorous yet incalculably sensitive to the human predicament and the psychology of everyday life, especially concerning but not limited to African-Americans.”

Before making photographs, DeCarava trained as a painter, printmaker and draftsman – initially using a camera as a reference tool for painting. By the late 1940s, DeCarava was printing striking, shadowy silver gelatin prints that would open up new technical possibilities in contemporary photography. Teju Cole wrote about the unique signature of DeCarava’s work, noting “the chiaroscuro effects came from technical choices: a combination of underexposure, darkroom virtuosity and occasionally printing on soft paper.”

DeCarava’s photographs were first exhibited in New York in 1950. In 1952, he became the first African American photographer to win a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. The Fellowship’s grant enabled DeCarava to embark on a project that would eventually become The Sweet Flypaper of Life, a rich and innovative collaboration with poet Langston Hughes. Hughes chose a selection of DeCarava’s photographs and composed a vivid fictional narrative from the perspective of a Harlem grandmother, Sister Mary Bradley. The Sweet Flypaper of Life remains a luminous work of collaborative storytelling, and is considered a photo-book touchstone. DeCarava followed up with another ground-breaking publication in 1960, the sound i saw, a handmade artist book tracking his engagement of the fiery jazz music scene of New York City.

Throughout his life, DeCarava championed the advancement of fine art photography and supported and inspired generations of photographers. From 1955 to 1957, he established and ran The Photographer’s Gallery, the first gallery in the country to focus exclusively on American fine art photography. In 1975, DeCarava joined the faculty of Hunter College, where he taught both undergraduate and MFA courses for decades. He was named Distinguished Professor of Art in 1988.

Supreme has worked with the DeCarava Archives on a new collection for Spring 2022. The collection features a Hooded Sweatshirt and two T-Shirts.

All profits from the Roy DeCarava collection will benefit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. For more information, visit: www.nypl.org

Available May 19th.

Available in Japan May 21st.

04/26/2022

Supreme/Gummo

Gummo is an experimental American film released in 1997. It marks the directorial debut of then-23-year-old Harmony Korine. The film is set in present-day Xenia, Ohio – a small city that was hit by a tornado in 1974. It was shot, however, in Korine’s hometown, Nashville.

Frustrated by romanticized depictions of contemporary American life, Korine sought instead to create a film that felt true to his experiences growing up in Tennessee. Gummo comprises a series of loose vignettes that occur throughout the decimated Xenia, weaving together everyday violence, poverty, destruction, abuse, loneliness and teenage boredom with moments of Vaudevillian humor, absurdity and gritty tenderness.

Gummo is characterized by bold experimentation and pastiche – both narratively and visually. Korine cast mostly local non-actors, including people he met at bowling alleys and fast-food restaurants. Korine discovered its two leads – Jacob Reynolds and Nick Sutton – while watching cable T.V. (Reynolds in The Road to Wellville and a Dunkin Donuts commercial; Sutton in a drug prevention episode of The Sally Jesse Raphael Show about sniffing paint). Gummo also features Linda Manz, Mark Gonzales and Chloë Sevigny, who designed costumes for the film.

Although Gummo is scripted, many of its scenes were improvised or developed spontaneously. The film itself is a collage-like assemblage of traditional 35mm film, home-movie-style VHS and Hi-8 footage, and Polaroid photographs – shot partly by the cast itself. “It's like looking at a book of private photos,” Korine has said of this approach. “There's a picture of you in front of a castle or maybe a monument. And next to that is a picture of your grandfather on the toilet. And next to that is a picture you took of Michael Jackson. If you looked at them on their own without knowing the context, then they would seem singular or random. But just because one is next to the other, a kind of narrative comes through. That goes along with Gummo. That's how Gummo was written.”

Gummo proved critically divisive upon its release, yet its startling originality won Korine praise from many distinguished filmmakers including Jean Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. “Venomous in story; genius in character; victorious in structure; teasingly gentle in epilogue; slapstick in theme; rebellious in nature; honest at heart; inspirational in its creation and with contempt at the tip of its tongue,” wrote Gus Van Sant, “Gummo is a portrait of small-town Middle American life that is both bracingly realistic and hauntingly dreamlike.”

This Spring, Supreme will release a collection featuring imagery from Gummo and original artwork by Harmony Korine. The collection consists of a Coaches Jacket, Football Top, Hooded Sweatshirt, two T-Shirts and two Skateboards.

Available April 28th.

Available in Japan April 30th.