often , I do not plan in advance . I wanted to do this alone on stage because it has always been a passion to be in this search for the In July 2021 , LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton announced it would be taking a 60 % stake in O -White , with founder Abloh , then the creative director of menswear for Louis Vuitton , retaining the remaining 40 %. At the same time , Abloh was given greater creative control across the LVMH brand . Abloh worked frequently with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami . Abloh was given a solo art show in Murakami ' s Kaikai Kiki art gallery in Tokyo , Japan . On numerous occasions , their artwork has been showcased together such as the Museum of Contemporary Art , Chicago and Murakami ' s shop Oz Zingaro in Tokyo . In 2018 , Abloh and Murakami collaborated on a series of exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery ' s outposts in London , Paris , and Beverly Hills .
Abloh ' s first solo museum art exhibition occurred at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019 . After Chicago , Virgil Abloh : Figures of Speech traveled to the High Museum of Art , the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston , the Brooklyn Museum , and Qatar Museums , as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture . The exhibition was intended to o er a mid-career retrospective of Abloh ' s endeavors in art , design and music . The passing of Abloh has made headline around the world and some wrote insightful words , about the designer .
“ The artistic director of Louis Vuitton men ’ s wear as well as the founder of his own brand , O -White , Mr . Abloh was a prolific collaborator with outside brands from Nike to Evian , and a popular fashion theorist whose expansive and occasionally controversial approach to design inspired comparisons with everyone from Andy Warhol to Je Koons . Mr . Abloh transformed not just what consumers wanted to wear , bridging hypebeast culture and the luxury world , but what brands wanted in a designer — and the meaning of “ fashion ” itself .
Vanessa Friedman the New York times .
“ Virgil seemed to bend time . The work ethic that gave way to his sprawling body of work is exhaustively documented , the relentless travel schedule that seemed to put him in multiple places at once well understood . He was a conduit , bringing people together on personal and professional levels , speaking big brother-style across generations , gaining access to positions of considerable power and inviting all those who inspired him along for the ride . In this way , his work functioned sometimes as a corrective , proposing alternate presents , the way things should have been , and making them real — without Virgil , Nigo isn ’ t named Creative Director of Kenzo . Like , of course Nigo should run an LVMH brand . Of course Louis Vuitton should make shoes for Lucien Clarke to skate in . Virgil did things that surprised you , but , once done , seemed so obvious . He was so funny , too — that ’ s something I don ’ t think gets mentioned enough . The quotation marks , the persistent ALL CAPS , the fastidious labeling . Lately he ’ d been designing Jordans with portholes he encouraged wearers to cut out at home like their own mini-Matta-Clarks . It ’ s a gesture encouraging one to consider the sneaker ’ s design afresh — it ’ s also hilarious . He understood the e cacy of humor as a vehicle for big ideas as well as any designer working . This was also a way for him to work above language , and so to be truly global . I thought it was so smart when he adopted the diagonal hashmarks for O -White, imprinting himself on something so abundant , so everywhere — kids would tweet him photos of diagonals painted on city streets and he ’ d retweet them , bringing them into his world , keeping up a conversation . I remember visiting Seoul in 2015 and seeing fake O -White everywhere , feeling like the future was pulling up imminently . For V , design may have been the freshest scam , but it was a labor of love , too . He had fun with it right up to last week ’ s show in Miami . Watching the stream from my apartment in Montreal , the looks finished with bulbous , monochrome hockey gloves hit me in the gut . I still remember exactly what my first pair of hockey gloves looked like — made by Koho , black and orange and white , Philly colors — and what it felt like to wear them to play pick-up with the kids in my neighborhood .
28 Flashmag ! Issue 124 December 2021