virgil abloh brings an urban language to galerie kreo, paris

coinciding with the spring edition of maison et objet in paris, virgil abloh has designed a 20-piece furniture collection for galerie kreo, comprising round and coffee tables, consoles, seats, vases, and mirrors. the project is titled ‘efflorescence’, a word that refers to the migration of a salt to the surface of a porous material, where it forms a coating. in french, the word means ‘to flower out’, a seemingly paradoxical title for what appears at first to be series of solid and weighty objects.

installation view | image © morgane le gall, courtesy galerie kreo
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however, abloh has used the botanical term to reflect the production method of the pieces. ‘like these wildflowers that fit into the interstices and corners of urban space, the holes, formal accidents, and graffiti that cover and personalize — in different ways each time — the concrete surface offers a visual and emotional texture to recharge our immediate environment: a landscape where the rigidity of structures and urban planning meets the randomness of organic growth and human appropriation and mark-making,’ says galerie kreo.

installation view | image © morgane le gall, courtesy galerie kreo

conveying abloh’s desire to bring an urban language to the gallery’s white space, ‘bench 2’ — at nearly three meters (10 ft) in length — is reminiscent of a skate ramp. drilled with irregular holes at regular intervals, and covered with graffiti the bench is described as a ‘trojan horse’ dedicated to the deconstruction of the generic and conversations on the here and now.

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the gallery and the designer stress that today’s art and culture is now longer categorized as ‘high’ or ‘low’, or ‘avant-garde’. instead, it is a question of producing an interaction design, where the dialogue between the producer and the user is horizontal. ‘to me, design always has the inherent idea of being a bridge from the past, with an eye towards the future,’ says virgil abloh, who sought to use the forms and ideas of brutalism to convey the creative expression of urban life. ‘in conclusion, architecting a language of adverting the norm that a purist and a tourist can both comprehend.’

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