Born in Rockford, Illinois, in 1980, Virgil Abloh was an artist, architect, engineer, creative director, and fashion designer. After earning a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he completed a Masters degree in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was here that he learned not only about design principles but also crafted the principles of his art practice. He studied a curriculum devised by Mies ven der Rohe, who also designed the core campus. Virgil Abloh was the Chief Creative Director and founder of Off-White between 2013 and 2021 and Artistic Director of Menswear at Louis Vuitton from 2018 to 2021. He has collaborated with Vitra for the exhibition Twentythirtyfive and the “Spin-off” collection. Last summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago dedicated to his manifold practice a comprehensive exhibition entitled Figures of Speech. This exhibition was presented at the High Museum of Art Atlanta in 2020, and continued at the ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art – of Boston and at the Brooklyn Museum of New York. Conceived by Alaska Alaska, “a research-based design and creative service practice tooted in contemporary landscapes, essentially questioning design while designing ‘design’,” four «efflorescence» pieces were shown there: Bench 1, Bench 2, Round High Chair, and Mirror 2. In January 2020, «efflorescence» was his first exhibition in a gallery dedicated to contemporary design.