Complex has featured the new SAMO© x DARKCIRCLE capsule, created to coincide with Al Diaz's landmark UK debut exhibition, SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION, at D’Stassi Art in London.
The collaboration brings the language and visual identity surrounding SAMO© into a tightly produced collection spanning clothing, prints, objects and large scale textile works.
SAMO© x DARKCIRCLE
Developed with UK label DARKCIRCLE, the capsule extends Diaz's text based practice into a new series of limited objects and garments created around the London exhibition.
The collection includes the SAMO© Museum Tote, Individuality T-shirt and hoodie, limited intervention garments, prints and large format woven tapestries.
Several pieces were individually worked on by Diaz, bringing elements of the artist's hand directly into the collection and blurring the boundary between artwork, edition and wearable object.
Launched in Shoreditch
The collaboration was unveiled during the opening of SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION at D’Stassi Art in Shoreditch, where DARKCIRCLE installed a dedicated presentation of the collection inside the gallery.
The launch formed part of a wider programme surrounding Diaz's time in London, encompassing new original works, limited editions and interventions extending beyond the gallery and into the surrounding streets.
From New York to London
The capsule arrives within a much longer story surrounding Diaz and SAMO©.
Diaz began writing in New York during the early 1970s before meeting Jean-Michel Basquiat at City-As-School. Together they developed SAMO© as a conceptual form of public communication, using language and carefully constructed statements to engage people moving through downtown Manhattan.
Nearly five decades later, SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION brings that history into dialogue with Diaz's contemporary practice, presenting both the legacy and continued evolution of an artist whose relationship with language remains central to his work.
The DARKCIRCLE collaboration extends that conversation into another medium, translating selected ideas and phrases associated with Diaz's practice into physical editions produced specifically around the London exhibition.
Read the full Complex feature:
Al Diaz and DARKCIRCLE Turn 'SAMO' Into New Collab Capsule
Discover the exhibition:
Al Diaz: SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION