What to Do Today: Get Your Fashion Fix at Gagosian’s Murakami & Abloh Show

Stuck on what to do today? Let us help you. This Monday 26 February, we recommend heading to The Mayfair Gallery for a stream of free-wheeling, punkish mash-ups……

If you often find yourself stuck for ideas of what to do, we’ve come to the rescue with our brand new ‘What To Do Today’ feature. We handpick the best of what’s on in London and the country right now, whether a new restaurant, must-see show, exhibition ending soon or a pop-up that you must, ahem, pop in to. Check back every day for inspiration…

Future History: Murakami & Abloh

London Fashion Week may have ended, but luckily Gagosian has come through to satisfy our need for the visually exciting. The Mayfair gallery has just opened Future History, exhibiting a unique series of works by renowned artists Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh, whose art has long been at the forefront of the fashion world. The duo collaborated on these new pieces from Murakami’s studio in Tokyo, combining their trademark styles to create ‘a stream of free-wheeling, punkish mash-ups’. The resulting show is an incisive reflection on the signs of our time, through imagery that jolts the visitor’s memory.

Lever Gallery’s 60s & 70s Exhibition is also a Must-See This Month

‘We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art’ – Takashi Murakami

Fashion devotees will no doubt be familiar with the duo – but for those who aren’t, this is why you should be excited…

Takashi Murakami is the renowned Japanese contemporary artist known for blurring the lines between so-called ‘high’ and ‘low’ arts. He’s well known for his long-term collaboration with Louis Vuitton, reimagining their monogram logo in playful pop colours and redesigning a series of handbags using his own cartoony images of cherries, animal figures and smiling flowers (Google the collab for an instant flashback to the early Noughties). But his influence extends far beyond fashion, to film, pop culture, hip-hop and much more. With his ever-changing influences and personal style, his art has remained embedded in the collective imagination of an entire generation.

Virgil Abloh is best-known for founding street-couture label Off-White in 2013. His penchant for thought-provokingly deconstructing and challenging existing creative processes and aesthetic systems means that his label often subverts common conventions of fashion. Having also worked across architecture, performance and consumer products, his unorthodox approach lends itself beautifully to Murakami’s aesthetic.

READ MORE: The Best Current Exhibitions in London

Their collaboration on the works exhibited at Gagosian is something of a match made in design heaven – but the complete opposite at the same time. What results is philosophical, subversive, and downright beautiful, too. Absolutely not to be missed.

‘We are driven by an innate ambition to make art works that are shaped by societal observations—in a variety of media—which by their existence produce a new cultural impact’ – Virgil Abloh

Where & When?

Gagosian is located at 17–19 Davies Street London W1K 3DE. The exhibition runs until 7 April 2018

For more information, visit gagosian.com

What’s on this week in the town? And in the country? Check out our culture diaries before you fill in yours.