Virgil Abloh: The Codes

New York — Opening December 10, the Virgil Abloh Foundation, in partnership with Nike, will present Virgil Abloh: The Codes at The Shed, a major survey exhibition celebrating the work, ideas, collaborators, and enduring legacy of Virgil Abloh (1980–2021), the visionary designer, artist, and cultural innovator whose multidisciplinary practice transformed contemporary fashion and expanded the possibilities of design. The exhibition will bring together nearly 1,000 objects, offering an expansive exploration of Abloh’s creative process, his influential collaborations, and the ideas that connected his work across disciplines.

“As we mark the fifth anniversary of Virgil’s passing, this exhibition is an opportunity to honor his tireless spirit and how he changed the way people think about creativity, collaboration, and what is possible. Virgil believed in opening doors and making knowledge accessible, and The Codes brings that spirit forward by sharing his process, his ideas, and the extraordinary breadth of his work with new generations. His legacy lives on through the people he inspired and the opportunities we continue to create in his name,” noted Shannon Abloh, Founder, Virgil Abloh Foundation.

Curated by Chloe and Mahfuz Sultan, The Codes examines the systems, references, and methodologies that informed Abloh’s approach to making. Moving across fashion, footwear, art, architecture, graphic design, music, and cultural production, the exhibition explores how Abloh challenged established boundaries between creative fields and reimagined the relationship between design, authorship, and access. Through finished works, prototypes, sketches, archival materials, and objects that illuminate his process, the presentation will trace the evolution of a practice grounded in experimentation, collaboration, the reinterpretation of familiar forms and an absolute rejection of hierarchy.

The exhibition takes its title from the codes that shaped Abloh’s creative language: recurring ideas, visual strategies, and methods that enabled him to move fluidly between disciplines while developing a distinctive and widely influential body of work. His practice connected luxury fashion and street culture, fine art and commercial design, and personal expression and collective creativity. By foregrounding both the objects Abloh produced and the thinking behind them, The Codes invites audiences to consider design as an open, evolving process—one that encourages new generations to question conventions and participate in shaping culture.

“Virgil understood that design could be both a discipline and an invitation. His work revealed the possibilities that emerge when we challenge the boundaries between fields, bring unexpected references into conversation, and make room for many to participate in the creative process. Virgil remains a progenitor of this moment—an undeniable weathervane: this exhibition offers an opportunity to look closely at the codes that connected Virgil’s many practices,” said Chloe Sultan, co-curator of Virgil Abloh: The Codes, Director of Virgil Abloh Archive™.

“Virgil was known for bringing people from different walks of life together. He demonstrated profound loyalty and consistently shared time with those in his community. This exhibition provides an opportunity to engage with that generous spirit and to celebrate alongside friends, collaborators, and creatives who played a crucial part in his story. We’re incredibly excited for this celebration to take place in New York, a city that played such an integral role in shaping his practice,” added Mahfuz Sultan, co-curator of Virgil Abloh: The Codes, Director of Virgil Abloh Archive™.

The presentation reflects the Virgil Abloh Foundation’s commitment to advancing Abloh’s creative legacy and expanding access to his work. Bringing together works at an unprecedented scale, the exhibition will offer audiences an opportunity to engage with the breadth of his practice and consider how his ideas continue to influence contemporary culture and future generations of artists and designers.

“The Codes are the underlying principles that connected Virgil’s work across disciplines. They reveal not only his creative intention, but also his belief that ideas become more powerful when they are shared, reinterpreted, and put into the hands of others. Bringing nearly 1,000 objects together at The Shed allows us to illuminate the depth of his methodology and the relationships between seemingly disparate projects. This is an opportunity to experience Virgil’s practice as an evolving framework—one that continues to inspire new ways of making, thinking, and creating access for others,” remarked Athiththan Selvendran, Chief Creative Officer, Virgil Abloh Foundation.

The exhibition will also recreate Abloh’s iconic Paris office at Pont Neuf, a space emblematic of the collective feeling that imbued the architectural space and famously open-door policy. A debunked notion of a Parisian atelier and more than a workplace, the office reflected Abloh’s belief in round-the-clock accessibility, exchange, and the importance of creating opportunities for emerging creative voices. Its reimagining at The Shed will offer visitors a window into the environment where ideas were shared, laughter amplified, projects developed, and creative communities brought together.

Extending this spirit of openness, a dedicated media lab will provide visitors with open access to a selection of Virgil Abloh’s raw design files, inviting experimentation, reinterpretation, and hands-on engagement with his creative process. Conceived as an entry point into Abloh’s methodology, the lab will encourage audiences to explore the codes, tools, and visual systems underlying his work—not simply as finished outcomes to observe, but as starting points for their own creative investigations. By making elements of his working process accessible, the media lab will carry forward Abloh’s conviction that creative knowledge should be shared and that the next generation should have the tools to build upon what came before.

“Virgil Abloh was a prism for contemporary culture, refracting and combining fashion, music, art and design in new and inventive ways. His work helped a generation to imagine what becomes possible when the boundaries between disciplines begin to fall away. I had the privilege of workshopping a show idea with Virgil in 2019, which has made bringing his defining exhibition to The Shed especially meaningful,” said Alex Poots, Artistic Director of The Shed.

The exhibition will also feature a dedicated retail experience co-curated by Justin Saunders, founder of JJJJound, extending the world of The Codes beyond the galleries. Conceived as an extension of Abloh’s creative philosophy and his approach to design, collaboration, and cultural exchange, the retail experience will offer a selection of merchandise developed in dialogue with the exhibition. Bringing together the worlds of design, fashion, and collecting, the space will invite visitors to engage with Abloh’s legacy through objects that reflect the continued relevance of his ideas and their influence on contemporary culture. Further details about the retail experience and merchandise will be announced in the coming weeks.

Virgil Abloh: The Codes will celebrate a body of work that continues to challenge conventional distinctions between disciplines and redefine the role of the designer in contemporary culture. The exhibition presents Abloh’s creative legacy not simply as a record of past achievements, but as an ongoing invitation to experiment, collaborate, and imagine new possibilities. A month-long schedule of public programming will accompany the exhibition, bringing together creative voices for conversations, performances, workshops, and related events. Further details of the public program will be announced at a later date.