{"id":24501,"date":"2022-06-24T14:24:25","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T10:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/?post_type=articles&p=24501"},"modified":"2022-06-24T17:06:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T13:06:17","slug":"virgil-abloh-the-compass-the-journey","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/virgil-abloh-the-compass-the-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Compass: Remembering A Final Conversation With Virgil Abloh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Virgil Abloh (Photo by Gueorgui Pinkhassov\/Magnum Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was early last November that I arrived at Doha\u2019s Fire Station for a tour of \u201cFigures of Speech\u201d. Virgil Abloh and curator Samir Bantal greeted the small group of assembled press with the kind of intimacy usually reserved for close friends. Sunglasses on and armed with a double espresso, battling exhaustion from a week of fashion and design events courtesy of Qatar Creates, we began what was to be Abloh\u2019s last press tour at his final exhibition.<\/p>\n

Presented as an in-depth look at the creative\u2019s diverse and pioneering media practice across visual arts, music, fashion, architecture and design, and featuring more than 55 works, the exhibition had been billed as a mid-career retrospective \u2013 but \u201cFigures of Speech\u201d wasn\u2019t grounded in the past. Less about looking back and more about appreciating the present, the works on display \u2013 whether a rug created in collaboration with IKEA in 2019 or his \u201cIllinois Institute of Technology Master\u2019s Thesis Building\u201d cityscape designed as part of his Master\u2019s degree in Architecture \u2013 were part of a conversation and journey that had led the designer and artist to arrive at this moment. Defying chronology, wherever \u201cFigures of Speech\u201d took us, Abloh was resolutely and defiantly grounded in the \u2018now\u2019.<\/p>\n

That sentiment found its affinity in the curation of the exhibition. \u201cWhen we started working on the show, the initial idea was to present it in chronological order,\u201d said Bantal. \u201cBut we realised it was much more interesting to talk about the network that Abloh moves between \u2013 fashion, music, art, design, and architecture. That kind of fluidity was actually much more important than a simple chronological overview of the work because not only do you have a sense of the disciplines he\u2019s able to navigate through, but also, at the same time, an understanding of a network within a network in terms of creating collaborations with thinkers, artists, writers, and designers. He uses his own skills as a passport through all these different disciplines, and so the show is built up from different chapters \u2013 we have the Early Work, Fashion, Streetwear, Music, Black Gaze, Design, and The End [a section of the exhibition that presents recent works that are emblematic of Abloh\u2019s practice of critiquing the influence of advertising]. As you walk through, you start to see things that return, networks that exist \u2013 and because of that setup, it can actually continue to grow over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key, as Samir was saying, is the community,\u201d continued Abloh. \u201cThat\u2019s the underpinning of the research \u2013 this community that I foster, but also represent; this generation of creators that are cross-disciplinary. It goes into the first works for Louis Vuitton \u2013 the T-shirts made for the guests to wear at the first fashion show [as Artistic Director, Menswear], all in a rainbow array, a crowd mixed together, so that all the colours combined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Courtesy of Alessio Segala<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His voice was unwaveringly articulate. I found myself enraptured \u2013 a feeling that I had previously only experienced with performance artist Marina Abramovi\u0107. His works, brilliant and laden with meaning, were just the beginning. As he spoke, his mind took him in THE COMPASS WORDS BIANCA BRIGITTE BONAMI new directions, identifying new possibilities, mapping new territories. I recalled a verse from John Donne, taken out of its original context and pervaded with new meaning by Abloh: \u201cIf they be two, they are two so \/ As stiff twin compasses are two; \/ Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show \/ To move, but doth, if the other do.\u201d The exchange felt symbiotic; we relied on Abloh\u2019s vision to steer us and he, in turn, relied on us, his community, to draw from him and allow ourselves the freedom to take our own thinking further. He had the unique ability to sweep up his audience, to surprise and excite us, so that \u2013 like the compass \u2013 should he stand still, we would orbit around him; following his chain of thought as we followed him dutifully around the exhibition space. As he spoke, my tiredness disappeared like a horizon in mist so much so that later that night I headed to Nobu at Four Seasons Doha, a space that Abloh had hired to host a celebratory party. He took to the decks as Naomi Campbell sashayed on the dancefloor and I stood behind him – arms flailing, screaming out lyrics – like an ID-less 15-year-old enjoying her first foray in a club.<\/p>\n

As we continued our tour of the Fire Station, we heard Abloh\u2019s distinctive voice ring out in Early Work, a gallery in which viewers encounter \u201cA Team With No Sport\u201d (2012); a video he had made to promote his Pyrex Vision brand. In the video, Black youth wear sweatshirts and T-shirts that Abloh has printed with the words \u201cPyrex 23.\u201d \u201cThis work was pivotal in my career in terms of mixing disciplines,\u201d Abloh explained. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a fashion project, it was more about capturing in film the youth energy in New York that would one day influence fashion. It\u2019s the idea that fashion and identity aren\u2019t about the clothes, they are about the comradery and what\u2019s happening amongst the new generation.\u201d Despite the Pyrex Vision line selling out in minutes, the critical response after the film debuted was less favourable, branding the pieces as too expensive. \u201cSo this starts to bring into play the question of what is valuable,\u201d Abloh said. \u201cWere they too expensive because of my ethnicity? Were they too expensive because of my point of view?\u201d One of the write-ups that contextualised the film, by critic Jian DeLeon for Four Pins, argued that \u2018It\u2019s entirely possible Pyrex simply bought a bunch of Rugby flannels, slapped \u2018PYREX 23\u2019 on the back, and re-sold them for an astonishing mark-up of about 700%.\u2019 Abloh\u2019s response was to print the DeLeon quote on a large black rug, which formed part of the exhibition. \u201cWe created this rug as a figurative way to deal with the critical response,\u201d Abloh said. \u201cThere is always a barrier to create, there\u2019s always going to be someone telling you that you\u2019ve gone too far. That\u2019s what this whole exhibit is \u2013 it\u2019s about existing, doing things differently, challenging the norm.\u201d As for the art critic? \u201cI\u2019m friends with him to this day, he has one of the rugs in his office. I sent it to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Courtesy of Alessio Segala<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A printed still from the film was one of the many pieces I rushed to buy at the gift shop; piling up T-shirts and hoodies that Abloh graciously signed. One such print bore the word \u201cTelevision\u201d in white text on a black background. \u201cI don\u2019t have a TV,\u201d I explained to him. \u201cSo I will hang this where one might have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the exhibition, and throughout his career, Abloh explored the notion of \u201cpurist and tourist\u201d; those that are part of the institution \u2013 the art historians, the critics \u2013 and those who remain outside of it but are excited by art, music and fashion and can see themselves within it. \u201cWhen it comes to critical responses,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m asking the question do these things matter? They matter a lot but they also don\u2019t matter at all. A body of work that exemplifies and investigates that, was my practice 20 years ago and still is today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFigures of Speech\u201d had the feel of a jigsaw puzzle in which each gallery was a piece required for the viewer to form a complete picture. Streetwear and its relationship to the subcultures of hip-hop and skateboarding found its way into Fashion and Music \u2013 the latter section featuring album covers and curated Off-White show soundtracks. \u2018Making of\u2019 elements; prototypes as well as finished artworks, attributed the exhibition with the quality of feeling both done and undone. \u201cThe way my practice is set up is sort of like a lexicon \u2013 one work creates more work and then creates different outlets. So the sonic contribution, the music for the score, was meticulously made to give context to my work. What you see here [pointing to a custom transparent CDJs and mixer created in collaboration with Pioneer DJ] is the first of its kind ever produced. The sound you are hearing is the soundtrack from consecutive Off-White shows, curated to give context to the work that audiences would see. Just before the fashion shows started, you would hear these interviews. There\u2019s a power to having a recognised voice rearrange the furniture inside someone\u2019s house before they see a body of work. These voices are source texts, in a way. There are so many barriers within one\u2019s brain that have to be unblocked to see fashion from a different point of view, and I use sound as a means to unlock those barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
MIAMI, FL – DECEMBER 04 DJ Virgil Abloh attends Paper Magazine, Sprout By HP & DKNY Break The Internet Issue Release at 1111 Lincoln Road on December 4, 2014 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris\/Getty Images for Paper);Virgil Abloh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That fresh point of view was also evident in a display of gold and platinum paper-clip jewellery created in collaboration with jeweller Jacob Arabo. \u201cAn important part of hip-hop culture is jewellery and the representative quality that jewellery has,\u201d Abloh explained. \u201cThe paperclip is the most inexpensive, elementary piece, but here it is maximalised, made the most it can be, with pav\u00e9 stones. Again that\u2019s very much my DNA and signature. It plays with perception, it plays with the ability to see yourself in it. So these works are different iterations on the idea of a paperclip. The paperclip is banal, generic, it\u2019s an object that\u2019s been designed by no specific person, it\u2019s something that\u2019s risen up through humanity, so a deeper layer of the work is an investigation into where design comes from, where art comes from, where hierarchy comes from. I like breaking things down that have a hierarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That notion of breaking down found its way into The Black Gaze gallery \u2013 \u201ca body of work,\u201d said Abloh, \u201cthat starts to highlight the elephant in the room of being diverse and operating in an ecosystem that traditionally doesn\u2019t represent the voice of the totality.\u201d Here, audiences were greeted with an Inez & Vinoodh advertising campaign image for Louis Vuitton featuring a three-year-old named Alieyth. The young child appears in the Wizard of Oz sweater from the SS19 collection. Wielding significant influence in terms of reflecting and, more importantly, working to promote and change Black cultural experiences in the United States, Abloh\u2019s focus on a young Black child in men\u2019s luxury clothing asks us what constitutes adulthood but also delves into questions about perception and expectation around race.<\/p>\n

In this same gallery, audiences also encountered a large image of a FaceTime screen on an iPhone, based on an observation by video artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa that the front facing camera of an iPhone captures how someone else looks at oneself especially in terms of their ethnicity and identity. \u201cThere\u2019s something about the way that we\u2019ve been trained by these tools in our hands that\u2019s almost beyond a mirror, beyond a photograph, it\u2019s cultural,\u201d said Abloh of Jafa\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Virgil Abloh at Paris Fashion Week Autumn\/Winter 2019, (Photo by Myles Kalus Anak Jihem)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This critique continued with \u201cYou\u2019re Obviously in the Wrong Place\u201d (2017), a phrase written in bright neon on a black wall. The quote, originally taken from the film Pretty Woman in which Julia Roberts\u2019 character is excluded from an upscale fashion boutique, encapsulates that sense of exclusion felt by many people of colour \u2013 from the fashion industry, from the arts and literary worlds, from the critical canon.<\/p>\n

It was exactly that exclusion which Abloh sought to redress \u2013 ushering in change not with a whisper, but with a roar; questioning everything and accepting nothing. His was a point of view that saw art as extending past the walls of museums and into the streets; into clothes, sneakers, music, and design. His was a validation that came from a life\u2019s work across disciplines and the tangible response to the dialogue he shaped\u2013 remembering \u201cthe girl who got out of a car and wanted me to sign her Nikes\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was just a few weeks later that I lay in bed, phone in hand, scrolling listlessly through Instagram and saw the post announcing Abloh\u2019s passing. My initial thought was that his account had been hacked. Death seemed incongruous with the man I had met \u2013 so full of life, so relentless in his creativity. I thought of seeing him, as we left the Fire Station, being lifted by crane, holding a can of graffiti spray to customise an outdoor billboard. It\u2019s how I will remember him \u2013 always creating, never stopping, even when the world had no idea of the battle he was fighting. I thought of my \u201cTelevision\u201d print hanging in the room next door. I thought of dancing at Nobu. I thought of my two-hour tour and the joy it had brought me. I thought of the observations he had made that no one else could see; of the moments of no particular note that he imbued with a special quality, of the fact that there was never a nothing with him but always a something. What would Abloh make of a compass that has lost one of its arms, I wondered? No doubt he would find both merit and meaning.<\/p>\n

Listen to Virgil Abloh speak to GRAZIA\u2019s Editor-in-Chief Alison Tay in a recorded conversation that now lives in his personal archive.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n