Key Takeaways
- Al Diaz and UK label DARKCIRCLE launched a limited SAMO© capsule featuring canvas totes, tees, hoodies, prints and tapestries priced from $68 to $1,282.
- The collaboration debuted alongside SAMO: TRANSATLANTICATION, Diaz’s first UK solo exhibition at D'Stassi Art in London's Shoreditch neighborhood.
- Diaz co-created SAMO© with Jean-Michel Basquiat as an "imaginary product" for mass communication, a history returning to focus through the upcoming film Samo Lives.
Al Diaz is putting his name on the phrase he helped invent, this time on canvas totes and tapestries through a new collab with DARKCIRCLE.
The SAMO© co-founder teamed with the UK brand founded by Aaron Dezonie for a limited edition capsule the label designed and manufactured for D'Stassi Art London, released in person at the gallery's opening night and online at the same moment.
The lineup starts at $68 for a heavyweight canvas SAMO© Museum Tote with screen printed details and climbs through a $95 Individuality Tee and $162 hoodies in black, each held to editions of 25.
Higher up the range sit three SAMO Shoreditch prints by Diaz at $473 each in editions of 50, plus Jumbo Individuality and Jumbo Flag tapestries at $1,282. A chore jacket in heavyweight canvas, hand-embellished on the back as a 1-of-1 and capped at an edition of five, was sold only at the event alongside the Intervention Tee.
The drop is tied to SAMO: TRANSATLANTICATION, Diaz's UK debut, which opened Friday (September 25) at D'Stassi Art at 12-18 Hoxton Street in Shoreditch. Admission to the opening was free, and the show gathers new spray paint, acrylic and art pen canvases along with a mural and street interventions Diaz made around the neighborhood during his trip over from Brooklyn.
Díaz started writing on the Lower East Side in 1971 at 12 years old, tagging as BOMB ONE among the first generation of subway writers. He met Jean-Michel Basquiat after transferring to City-As-School in 1976, and the two built SAMO© as an imaginary product engineered for mass communication rather than a coded tag for other writers.
In a video released with the show, Diaz traced the word itself back to slang the pair picked up and kept. "Samo was originally, I guess, an African-American expression of same-o, same-o. Like when a guy says, 'Hey, what's up, babe?' 'Oh, same-o, same-o,' this kind of thing, and we loved that. We were really into slang, and we just co-opted all this stuff and it became part of our lexicon," he said.
The timing puts that authorship back in front of a wider audience. Diaz's London run arrives as Basquiat's early years return to the screen through Julius Onah's feature Samo Lives, with Danny Ramirez playing Diaz and Kelvin Harrison Jr. playing Basquiat.
DARKCIRCLE has a few units left from the capsule will stay online for a limited time — get them here.
