Remembering Virgil Abloh (1980–2021)
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
By
Lewis Swan
June 13, 2022
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
Last year art-lovers, music lovers, fashion lovers and general world builders were saddened by the passing of Virgil Abloh. The visionary who tackled art in every sense of the word is known for a variety of reasons. You may know the artist from his early work as Kanye West’s Creative Director, his work in the fashion world with brands such as Pyrex, Off-White and Louis Vuitton, you may know him as DJ alter ego Flat White, or you may know the artist for his variety of sound installations and various art books that have appeared across the globe.
The artist well and truly left his mark in the art industry due to his ability to jump from one field to the other so effortlessly. If it was in art, design or music it didn’t really matter, you were always going to find a creation that left its mark, changed the field forever, started a conversation and ultimately, did the job it was designed to do, look good, and this is why Virgil Abloh always stood out from the crowd. A quote from the artist himself explains his role as an artist, and how the role he moulded for himself, gave him a chance to make a change through the medium of art and design. "I now have a platform to change the industry…we’re designers, so we can start a trend, we can highlight issues, we can make a lot of people focus on something or we can cause a lot of people to focus on ourselves.”
Here at gowithYamo we’d like to remember Virgil Abloh by showcasing some of our favourite creations from the late artist.
12 Inch Voices
To start off our exploration of Virgil Abloh’s multifaceted creations, we will first be looking at ‘12 Inch Voices’ the large scale sound installation that was created for the group show “MANIFESTO” in Paris back in 2019.
The giant pink sound installation, wrapped with soundproof foam panels in the shapes of spikes, finds itself in the centre of a hand crafted immersive experience as the sound blaring from the speakers merges with the lighting flickering and dancing all around the installation. The sound that bleeds into the room is created and performed live by Virgil Abloh himself as the artist becomes a key component to the immersive experience and sound installation itself.
Here is a short highlight reel directed by a fellow collaborator Thibaut Grevet.
“Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Virgil Abloh’s first solo exhibition “Figures of Speech” was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019. The exhibition was created to showcase as a mid-career glance at all things Abloh in the fields of art, music and design. The exhibition then went on to travel to the High Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture and will be on show at The Brooklyn Museum from 1st July 2022 to 29th January 2023. So, for all the American Yamos, make sure you don’t miss out.
“Figures of Speech” was solely dedicated to the work and influence of Virgil Abloh. Within the exhibition spaces, viewers were able to see works that spanned two decades. This included work such as the artist’s designs for both his fashion brand Off-White and Pyrex as well as his designs and creations for Louis Vuitton as the creative director of their menswear department, his collaboration with artists such as Takashi Murakami, to his collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West, and so on.
“Figures of Speech” Museum Catalogue
As part of Virgil Abloh’s exhibition “Figures of Speech”, was an exhibition catalogue which came in the form of a beautifully crafted and delightfully curated book. The book took an even greater dive into the life and career of Virgil Abloh from his early days at the Illinois Institute of Technology when the artist was studying to get his master’s in architecture. It was during this time, 2002 - 2006, that Virgil Abloh was heavily experimenting within the field of graffiti, where the artist met and started collaborating with musician Kanye West as well as started to branch into the fashion world where he was designing T-shirts. Skip forward eighteen years, and the artist has designed multiple album covers, created his own fashion line, had work shown within exhibitions across the globe, designed the famous ‘Ten’ collection with Nike, collaborated with Ikea, created and designed many, now iconic, runway shows as creative designer of men's fashion at Louis Vuitton and the list goes on.
The Figures of Speech catalogue gives its reader a deep dive into the mind of the artist and a glance at the artist’s creative process. Fan or just a casual reader, you get to see what made the cut and what didn't make the cut. Abloh also explains why and how he created all of his work which is nice to see from an artist. He doesn't keep all of his processes and secrets from within the industry to himself. This allows its reader to have some form of walkthrough or guide to the steps an artist could take to reach the heights of an artist such as Virgil Abloh, although, it seems there will never be another quite like the revolutionary designer and contemporary culture shifter he was.
Ruin
Ruin is another great example of a small, yet powerful makeshift world created by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Ben Kelly. The two artists created a mythical nightclub for their installation at 180 The Strand’s The Store. This mythical nightclub was created to remember what once was, the famous, gritty and loveable nightclubs that most remember from their youth. Combining fragments of abandoned nightclubs, the disco scene and dance music history they were able to create their very own makeshift space that once again, was a homage to what once was.
With a mixture of rundown aesthetics, vibrant lighting and disco props, both Abloh and Kelly were able to create the perfect immersive experience.
Kanye West’s Yeezus Album Cover
It would be wrong not to showcase some of Virgil Abloh’s creations for the artist Kanye West from his time as the creative director of Kanye’s creative agency ‘DONDA’. The album cover for Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, which was quite the talking point on its release back in 2013. People hated the cover due to its, well, lack of a cover.
A quote from Abloh himself explains the importance of the controversial cover and the importance of the ‘lack’ of a cover. “But for us, it represented the death of a CD... It's an open casket for a format of music we were raised up with, that'll never be seen.” Here we see Abloh explain that the cover was a final send off for the physical CD, a physical piece of art that would probably never be used ever again. It was during this time that the online presence of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music were taking control of the music industry. There was no longer a need for a physical copy of an album when it could be plucked from thin air. I think this is what makes this cover so special. Rather than go over the top and create a crazy cover one last time, the artist thought to create a minimalist cover that showcases the death of the CD that will be a clear reference point in history, a pinpoint in a sense, to a time and place where it all ended.
The cover itself created by Virgil Abloh, Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M Williams and Kanye himself also partnered with a brilliant advertisement campaign that allowed people to customise and create their own Yeezus covers with the help of posters scattered around the streets of New York City. The posters showcased the Yeezus album cover with three very simple words ‘Please Add Graffiti’. This allowed the Yeezus cover to have a new breath of fresh air with the cover on the poster being a blank canvas for endless possibilities and personal strokes of creativity from whoever passed by. Another clear example of creative excellence from Virgil Abloh.
The word ‘excellence’ seemed to follow Virgil Abloh around quite often and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be un-attaching itself from Virgil Abloh’s legacy anytime soon.
