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summer workshops

Ways of Experiencing: Virgil Abloh

Jun 24, 2024 – Jun 28, 2024

Across New York City

Karen Wong

and

Sky Gellatly

Gsapp.workshop.image.alternative karen m wong

Research Question

To counterbalance Alboh’s oft-cited accomplishments, the summer workshop Ways of Experiencing: Virgil Abloh asks what strategies and methodologies Alboh deployed in his hybrid projects. How did he manage the multi-channel output without losing his auteur credibility? And what business systems were in place so he didn’t lose control of his vision?

Overview

In the Fall 2023 semester, GSAPP’s course Ways of Experiencing challenged students to redefine the avant-garde in the 21st century. When we drilled down what represented innovation in architecture and contemporary art, the answers were surprising. For the former, it was not an engineering feat or radical design, but rather the participatory nature architects were adopting, such as collaborating with the neighborhood to design a monument or organizing a Mahjong Club to convene an intergenerational community. For the latter, students bypassed museum artists and declared the disruptive fashion campaigns of Balenciaga as the most progressive visual culture of their generation. Embedded in those answers is the oversized impact of the designer Virgil Abloh.

The media has focused primarily on Abloh’s autobiographical narrative — his polymathic ability to traverse creative disciplines — a practice that is not only sustainable (and lucrative) but one that blurs boundaries and breaks rules. Abloh reimagined a career path privileging architectural language as a thru line to create work outside the built environment’s domain. His example influences and inspires kids like himself, someone from the margins who named his luxury label Off-White and instigated a movement to sit at the table and claim the center for a new generation of creatives.

Download the workshop outline

Methodology and Process

The week-long intensive will be co-taught with an Alboh collaborator and friend, Sky Gellatly, and founder of ICNCLST, a marketing and artist management agency. The workshop meets daily and is punctuated with short lectures to set the stage for guest speakers who worked closely with Alboh. These intimate conversations with various professionals in graphic design, audio engineering, architecture, creative direction, and fashion are vital to the seminar. We examine the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, David Hammons, and Takashi Murakami and their imprint on Abloh’s practice. In addition, students will participate in groups for an exercise in branding and presentation.

Outputs and Findings

We will create a blueprint of his world-building and map it as a professional development model for architects and designers who don’t want to build buildings.

Other 2024 workshops

Flashing Arcs and Crater-Clouds: Revisiting Volcanology in Southern Italy	Mark Wasiuta, Felicity Scott	Southern Italy	Jul 17, 2024 – Jul 24, 2024
Searching for Bardo: How to create transformative & totalizing hospitality experiences	Jonathan Kully, Kelly McFadden	Savannah, GA	Jun 17, 2024 – Jun 28, 2024
Exploring Metal Casting and Collaborative Experimental Preservation	Jorge Otero-Pailos, Kate Allen	Birmingham, AL	Jun 10, 2024 – Jun 23, 2024
Amsterdam 2040: 3 case studies from vision to realization	Kate Dunham	Amsterdam, Netherlands	Jun 8, 2024 – Jun 19, 2024
Real Estate Finance: Incentivizing Capital to Create Better Outcomes in the Built Environment	Chris Munsell	Across New York City	Jun 3, 2024 – Jun 14, 2024