A Bridge Between Worlds: Virgil Abloh in Art, Design, and Everything Else
“To me, design always has the inherent idea of being a bridge from the past, with an eye towards the future”
Throughout his life, Virgil Abloh emanated a relentless creative force that, through meaningful contributions in the fields of fashion, art and design, forever changed the world’s cultural landscape. With each creative realm he touched, the world became more fresh, more dynamic, less bound by constrictions that keep artistic creations within tightly curated categories. Abloh, in his words and in the words of those near him, was a “maker,” a “barrier-breaking designer,” always ahead of the zeitgeist. With a creative vision unlike any other, he quickly became regarded as the voice of a generation.
Equipped with degrees in civil engineering and architecture, Abloh was a multidisciplinary thinker from the outset of his career. “We can use our architecture brain and do many things”, he said, “not just what we're supposed to do” (The artist in an interview with Eleanor Gibson, "I started my fashion brand to do architecture says Virgil Abloh," 22 December, 2020, Dezeen (online)). With this outlook, he embarked on a succession of creative enterprises, not least the creation of the iconic fashion label Off-White in 2012, with which he bridged the previously socially dissociated realms of luxury and streetwear, and his tenure as Creative Director of Menswear at Louis Vuitton from 2018. In these positions, Abloh was able to invite a younger and more diverse audience to engage with haute couture and the discourse of fashion – and in doing so, challenged the deeply rooted status quo that had historically dominated the industry.
Alongside his accomplishments in fashion, Abloh left a perennial mark in the world of design. Design always had an intimate ring within Abloh’s creative practice. Ever since studying architecture and engineering in his early years, he had had a penchant for all that touched phenomenology and the concept of use: how one interacts with surrounding objects, and how surrounding objects are designed to spur human action, reaction, and emotion. In 2016, he created Grey Area – a furniture offshoot of Off-White, where he imagined a number of capsule collections in conjunction with storied design houses like Vitra and Ginori 1735, as well as contemporary galleries dedicated to the cutting edge. In 2019, Abloh had his first-ever design solo show in a gallery, with the defining exhibition “EFFLORESCENCE” at Galerie kreo.
“EFFLORESCENCE” posited as Abloh’s most striking and succinct contribution to the field of design. The collection blurred the lines between sculpture and functional furniture, and successfully imagined “a landscape where the rigidity of structures and urban planning meets the randomness of organic growth and human appropriation and mark-making” (Press Release for Virgil Abloh's "efflorescence" at Galerie Kreo, London, January 24-March 2, 2020). Bringing together pieces made of raw, hand-painted concrete, or polished steel mirrors whose silhouettes evoked the contours of shiny smartphones, “EFFLORESCENCE” presented a visual universe halfway between brutalism and urban life. It took its name from the eponymous scientific term, which designates the chemical process whereby crystalline salt migrates to the surface of a porous material, leaving behind a white powder in its wake. In more lyrical terms, the word “efflorescence” describes the act of flowering out, blossoming or bursting forth, like a spark of creativity or the flourishing of nature in spring. With regard to the exhibition, Abloh said: "I see this moment as a way forward for the blending of the arts" (The artist in Gay Gassmann, "Virgil Abloh Lands on the Paris Gallery Scene," 13 January 2020, Architectural Digest (online))
During the Now Evening Auction of May 2022, Sotheby’s is honored to present a standout work from “EFFLORESCENCE": the eponymous “EFFLORESCENCE” desk. The monolithic piece is punctuated with circular cutouts – perforations that evoke the possibility of new growth, like the germination of a wildflower through a crack in the sidewalk.
To create the present piece, Abloh began with a block of concrete, a material used throughout urban environments around the globe, but also redolent of brutalist architecture of the mid-century, characterized by a minimalist construction. Abloh was thoughtful and deliberate when making such historical references: “To me, design always has the inherent idea of being a bridge from the past, with an eye towards the future.” (The artist quoted in Nora Uotila, "Virgil Abloh's new installation opens at Vitra Campus," 6 December, 2019, Design Stories (online)) The piece, though carefully constructed with rounded corners and purposely incongruous voids, looks like the extension of a city’s urban fabric – the magical manifestation of a megapolitan ecosystem. The hand-painted graffiti traversing the piece’s body, reading “ACID” and “20,” carries the unique quality of the object, which Virgil used as an architectural canvas to which he applied his dynamic, idiosyncratic writing.
Abloh indeed adorned the surface of the desk with hand painted graffiti – a signature trait appearing throughout his oeuvre. His incorporation of graffiti, indebted to the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, but also Futura, PHASE 2, Dondi White and other creators whose craft was city-centric, allows a blend between external expression and domestic concerns. In Abloh’s own words, the piece is subjected to “the flower bomb effect that these objects would incur in an urban environment” as “essentially magnets for multi-name graffiti.” (The artist cited in Robert Patos, "Virgil Abloh Takes over Galerie Kreo with New Home Goods Collection," 17 January 2020, urbancoolab (online)). Indeed, the vibrant blue, white and hot pink paint appear to bloom organically from the hard, gray concrete, encircling the base like a meandering vine of ivy.
From the “EFFLORESCENCE” series, only two desks exist — the second forming part of an important Private Collection. Further testifying to the importance of the collection within Abloh’s work, four other models from “EFFLORESCENCE” are currently shown in his monumental international retrospective “Figures of Speech,” which began its tour at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2019, travelled to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2020 and the ICA in Boston in 2021, and will feature at the Brooklyn Museum in July 2022. Representing Abloh’s debut at auction, the “EFFLORESCENCE” desk is a masterpiece by the late visionary creator whose versatile legacy will never be forgotten.
