Friendship is the Source Material

Emotions can run high when your history is exhibited right in front of you. There was a point in his talk in front of students and staff at SCAD MOA when Tremaine Emory needed a moment; a pause. His tears were a genuine reminder to anyone in the audience, and most importantly to himself, that institutional shows come with the weight of all the work it took to get there. These aren't casual, cast-off moments of a career; they are milestones, the encapsulation of years of hard work, years of friendship, years of scars, of collaboration, of pain and passion. Emory is the designer of his own label, Denim Tears, a self-described "African American sportswear," and has worked with, for, and piloted countless other design and fashion labels. All his life he has wanted to articulate his vision into something concrete and yet something abstract, and here, in a museum, he has done it. To put his ideas of what goes into style, the history of what makes fashion, and the weight of the Black American experience of the last 300+ years into the singular vision of a museum show, well, it's emotional. And it should be.

I knew of Emory through his work as creative director at Supreme, and knew the controversy of him leaving his post after a contentious dispute over an Arthur Jafa graphic, and I knew of his work with Converse and his David Hammons-inspired Denim Tears collaboration. His career as a designer and friend to the likes of Virgil Abloh, Frank Ocean, Ye, Theaster Gates and more has long been documented. But knowing all of this, I still didn't know what to expect at SCAD MOA and his first museum exhibition, Denim Tears from the Pool of Black Genius.

You walk in and are met by a wall of paintings by his influences: a Pool of Black Genius, so to speak. Then comes Emory's own work: scarecrows, decked out in his designs, headless and embedded in Georgia red clay. Emory was born in Georgia and grew up in New York, and it matters that the ground these figures stand on is the ground he comes from. It's a comment on Jim Crow, on slavery, but with all these wonderfully poetic paintings around them, the scarecrows take on something else: a mission statement of power from oppression.

That wall of influences has its own origin story. Emory's parents made sure he was around creativity and saw art as a kid; no matter how abstract or beyond his years it was, they made art a part of his life. The pool was filled early. And everything about this show is surrounded by what inspiration looks like, feels like, smells like and, in some cases, what the spirit of collecting feels like. For anyone between the ages of 25 and 45, anyone who came of age online, lining up for drops and trading references, this is like a journey into the most coherent and yet beautifully esoteric concept of collector culture, whether that is borrowing imagery, collecting vintage tees, absorbing art history, reading art books, buying sneakers, or designing and appropriating to create your style. It's powerfully done here, and even if you didn't know of Supreme or Denim Tears or any of Emory's work before this show, you immediately get the sense that he is taking you on a journey through how he became a creative director. This is his DNA, this is his blueprint. This show, to me, is about how visual culture impacts the physicality of fashion.

The morning after his talk, I wasn't scheduled to speak with Emory, but I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his talk centering on the idea of friendship in the process of making. "Find your friends," he told the students, "make art with people." After all these years of working in the arts, that is the advice I always give students as well: find your crew. But to hear someone at the level and status of Emory remind people that a museum show and a fashion label are never just the work of one person is refreshing and illuminating. Friendship is the source material. —Evan Pricco