March 27, 2018 |
Nan Goldin and Supreme. Two cultural bastions of New York City representing two distinct epochs in its recent history. Here, they come together for the latest of Supreme’s globally coveted collaborations, one that will doubtlessly generate the usual pandemic among ‘Supremacists’. This time though, we might well be getting in line ourselves. Few embody the city’s 1980’s Zeitgeist as well as Goldin, a world that largely seems to have been lost is brought back into the public eye through photographs taken from her seminal 1986 modern classic, The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency. In it, Goldin maps the city’s demi-monde, her “tribe” as she calls them, and a newly defiant LGBTQ community following the liberating success of the Stonewall riots. The 700 odd photographs are snapshots into the lives of friends, acquaintances and strangers, drawing on moments of ecstasy and pain, drug use and domestic violence, sex and the destruction wrought by AIDS. Comprising three skateboards, three t-shits, a hoodie and coach jacket, the Supreme pieces employ three iconic Goldin works, including Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC, Kim in Rhinestones, Paris and the unforgettable Nan as a dominatrix, Cambridge MA. We’ve obviously got our eyes firmly set on the apparel, but we’re more than willing to pretend we skateboard if we have to.
