Audacious Digs In Virgil Abloh’s Figures of Speech

at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Reviewed by Seren Sensei

In a short video clip during Figures of Speech, Virgil Abloh’s show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago, he mused on his upbringing and influences. Born the son of Ghanaian immigrants in a small town in Illinois, he discussed the wonders of growing up “in the middle of nowhere,” and the freedom it gave him to explore, and to create, without feeling beholden to any predominant ideology or method of production.

Chicago was located almost 100 miles east on the coast of Illinois, close enough for trips every now and then but far enough away that his artistic influences and point of view developed in tandem with and also independent of the city. His educational influences were many: he learned sewing and the business of clothes from his mother, a seamstress by trade, but like many first generation children of African immigrants, was pushed towards a more ‘stable’ career in the math and science fields. He graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 2002, and received a Master’s Degree in Architecture in 2006. He became disinterested in architecture shortly thereafter and interned at Fendi in Rome in 2009, a part of the cohort that also included rapper Kanye West (and he went on to become West’s de facto stylist and design collaborator.)

The very title of the show was a play on words, as meant to describe the influential figures of note in Abloh’s life: he idolized Chicago…