*Virgil Abloh: "Figures of Speech" *was the first museum exhibition devoted to Abloh's work, tracing two decades of practice across fashion, design, architecture, art, and music. Developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Brooklyn presentation was reorganized by writer and curator Antwaun Sargent with new elements developed specifically for the Museum—including never-before-seen archival material and a commission made with Abloh before his death in November 2021. The exhibition design built around the Museum's existing architecture rather than against it—working with the columns and spatial logic of the Great Hall to reflect Abloh's own thinking as a trained architect. Display cases took the form of large architectural tables: early sketches, fashion prototypes, and sound design work laid out together, the studio process made visible. Nearby, a model of Chicago presented Abloh's 2003 IIT architecture thesis—a proposed skyscraper that predated everything he became known for. The centerpiece was *Social Sculpture*, a full-scale house built into the Great Hall. Conceived by Abloh as a counter to the historical exclusion of Black artists from cultural institutions, it functioned as a gathering space—open to community partners and young artists to program independently, a museum within the museum.
Year: 2022
Clients: Brooklyn Museum
Category: Exhibition, Direction