Resisting a Legacy: Virgil Abloh’s “Figures of Speech”
The Brooklyn Museum's latest fashion exhibit doesn't want you to look at it.
Dear reader,
You are not going crazy. This newsletter used to be called Stir Crazy and it was about cooking and mental health. But then I started a new job and no longer had time to invent new meals on the regular, so I’m *pivoting* to a format that will let me talk about whatever I want to talk about without having to perfect a recipe first. I hope that’s cool.
Rebecca
Resisting a Legacy: Virgil Abloh’s “Figure of Speech”
Virgil Abloh was from Chicago. He started working on “Figures of Speech,” a retrospective exhibit of his work spanning art, design and fashion, not long before his death from a rare cancer in 2021.
That’s about all you’ll learn about him from viewing “Figures of Speech” at the Brooklyn Museum. I would have boned up on his biography beforehand if I’d known how sparely his work and life would be displayed on the handcrafted blonde wood worktables that anchor the show.
Ostensibly, the works in the show are arranged chronologically, but one of the first pieces you’ll see is a Louis Vuitton bag, so the chronological order seems to have been merely a suggestion. There are no labels on the individual exhibits, just a range of numbers on each table and a stapled brochure that offers some details for each number, making museum goers guess the number of the object they’re looking at and flip frantically through the brochure to learn anything about it all. The poorly copyedited brochure does include a visual guide matching works to their number, but when I used the guide to find information about a sculpture I was lead to the description of a canvas bag.
For an art exhibit, the art is surprisingly hard to look at—literally. Several drawings and photographs are laid flat on the table, and the museum guards bark at viewers repeatedly to stay behind a taped line at least 12 inches out, making it impossible for anyone under 6 feet tall to get a good look. Pieces from fashion collections are hung on garment racks, giving the viewer a fantastic glimpse at the left sleeve of each piece.
And the biographical information? Nonexistent. There’s a brass printing plate used to make the embossed packaging of Kanye and Jay-Z’s Watch the Throne album. How did Abloh come to design high profile album art (and so early in his career, if the chronological order is to be trusted)? That’s left to our imagination. Reading the exhibit guide now I’m learning a little bit more about some pieces, but in the room I was lost.
If you ask me—and absolutely no one is—I would have liked to see his work grouped by project: his work for Louis Vuitton, his own label Off-White, his sculpture and other design work with his studio Alaska Alaska. But as is, insulation sculptures and personal photographs are placed alongside an LV leather logo print kite, a pair of wire chairs in a neon gradient, and a black and white gown created for Beyonce’s Vogue photoshoot.
Why is the exhibit so hostile to the viewer’s enjoyment? It doesn’t seem in line with Abloh’s design aesthetic, which played with and benefitted from the accessibility of athleisure, commonplace materials, social media and its own commercial appeal. But put yourself in the customized Nikes of a groundbreaking designer who knows he won’t live much past 40 and is tasked with creating a retrospective of a career that will soon be cut short and the resistance makes more sense.
Perhaps it’s the artist’s involvement that’s the reason the exhibit is so frustrating to the viewer. Who wouldn’t balk, at least unconsciously, at the thought of thousands of strangers gawking at your life and your life’s work as death lingers in the distance. The experience leaves the viewers with a sense of incompleteness, but maybe that’s the point. A neatly categorized exhibit assumes the work is done, this one shows a vision in progress, a career permanently suspended in its upswing. Here the work is still on the work table, not ready for the gallery wall.
I love the Brooklyn Museum, and its fashion exhibits specifically, so I was disappointed not to get a better look at the work of a brilliant designer, but I will go again. The insulation and metal sculptures are delightful, the foam ladder is exquisite (even if I think it should be leaning against a wall instead of lying flat on a table) and his fashion is sublime. Read his Wikipedia entry before you go, take the time to read along in the brochure, be thankful for what you did get to see.
Recommendations
Get on Your Knees—Jacqueline Novak is a genius and there are still tickets left for a recently-added show at the Bell House. Don’t miss it.
Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson—one of my favorite books of the year.
Celebrity Memoir Book Club—This podcast is my preferred method for consuming celebrity culture.
This raccoon daycare TikTok account—The world is dark, look at some raccoons.