Can Virgil Abloh Fit in a Museum?

CHICAGO — There is one room in “Figures of Speech,” the Virgil Abloh exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, that vividly demonstrates how his aesthetic principles, emotional range and commercial ambitions all cohabitate cozily.

On one wall is an Inez & Vinoodh triptych of a young black child playing with Louis Vuitton items, from Mr. Abloh’s first ad campaign as the artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s wear design. The most striking is the middle image, in which a girl wears a psychedelically colorful sweater with a “Wizard of Oz” theme — is draped in it, actually — with small, fragile origami paper boats strewn at her feet. Her left arm is outstretched and she’s gazing off into the distance — it’s beatific.

But step to the other side of the room and see these photographs anew. On the floor in front of you will be a sculpture of a sort, an array of 16 numbered yellow markers, the kind used to denote the location of evidence at a crime scene. (What’s not on any information card is that 16 is the number of shots a Chicago police officer fired at Laquan McDonald in 2014, killing him.)

On the floor, there is tragedy. On the wall, there is hope.

It was also striking just how many people stepped right around the ghost on the floor — barely noticing it, if at all, as they snapped photos of an ad.

Source: The New York Times

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Virgil Abloh • Figure of speech • Virgil Abloh • Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago • Aesthetics • Inez and Vinoodh • Triptych • Louis Vuitton • Louis Vuitton • Graphic design • Sweater • The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) • Information Card • Shooting of Laquan McDonald •