The definitive Virgil Abloh monograph remains the Figures of Speech book, initially published in 2019 by DelMonico on the occasion of the designer’s first solo art exhibit at the Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Figures of Speech features three main sections: a catalog section providing an overview of Abloh’s interdisciplinary practice by MCA Chicago Chief Curator Michael Darling with essays and interviews by Taiye Selasi, Lou Stoppard, Michael Rock, Samir Bantal, Rem Koolhaas, and Anja Aronowsky Cronberg; an archives section with more than 1,800 never-before-seen images from the artist’s personal files; and an index section cross-referencing Abloh’s works with his projects and process, highlighting the designer’s vocabulary of themes.
Spanning Abloh’s entire body of work, from fashion and design by way of art, and from Off-White and Nike to Louis Vuitton, Figures of Speech is a must-have book for all Abloh devotees.
A Special Edition of the book was also released in 2019 with the words “PERSONAL COPY” silk-screened on the side of the book, a cloth slipcase with a measuring tape bookmarker, a flexi disc printed with a Juergen Teller photo, and a spoken word recording by Abloh and Playboi Carti, coinciding with the opening of the exhibit at the High Museum in Atlanta.
More recently, Figures of Speech was reprinted for the exhibit’s posthumous move to the Brooklyn Museum in 2022.
Buy on Amazon
First Edition
Publisher — DelMonico Books / Prestel
Publication Date — May 28, 2019
Format — Hardcover
Print Length — 496 pages
Dimensions — 9.31 x 1.88 x 12.25 inches
Dimensions — 23.65 x 4.78 x 31.12 cm
ISBN-10 — 379135857X
ISBN-13 — 978-3791358574
Special Edition
Publisher — DelMonico Books / Prestel
Publication Date — October 16, 2019
Format — Hardcover
Print Length — 496 pages
Dimensions — 9.63 x 2.25 x 12.69 inches
Dimensions — 24.46 x 5.72 x 32.23 cm
ISBN-10 — 3791359002
ISBN-13 — 978-3791359007
2022 Reprint for the Brooklyn Museumexhibit
Publisher — DelMonico Books / Prestel
Publication Date — August 9, 2022
Format — Hardcover
Print Length — 496 pages
Dimensions — 9.25 x 1.75 x 12 inches
Dimensions — 23.5 x 4.45 x 30.48 cm
ISBN-10 — 1636810748
ISBN-13 — 978-1636810744