Known for his work with Kanye West, his own fashion brand Off-White and his work as creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear, Virgil Abloh was raised outside of Chicago by Ghanaian parents. While trained in engineering and architecture, he developed interests from an early age in music, fashion and design, and he has pioneered a creative discipline that is highly collaborative across fields of design, art and culture.
In the Museum of Contemporaray Art Chigaco’s exhibition, titled “Figures of Speech,” the focus will be on Abloh’s creative process and collaborative work, notably in the realms of fashion, furniture and graphic design. Abloh’s approach to fashion takes inspiration from contemporary art, his architectural training and the world of music and celebrates the ethos of street style—including that of Chicago—in which, as the museum says, “high culture is appropriated, sometimes corrupted, and served up as something fresh and new.”
(See also: Jimmy Choo Teams Up With Virgil Abloh’s Off-White)
A number of Abloh’s signature collections will be on view, with video documentation showcasing his most iconic shows; those works will be shown alongside his collections of furniture and graphic design work, along with his collaborative projects with artists including Jenny Holzer, Arthur Jafa and John Baldessari.
At the MCA, the exhibition will be presented from June 10 to September 22, 2019. Tickets for the show will go on sale on November 1 at 10am Chicago time via mcachicago.org. According to the museum, “Figures of Speech” will then travel to select venues both nationally and internationally, although details have yet to be announced.
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