Virgil Abloh managed to surprise, break boundaries and, at the same time, revolutionize luxury at the helm of the Louis Vuitton men's creative team. He brought Off-White's signature streetwear to dissect and make it the perfect testing ground for his innovations.
The LV Trainers shoes are a clear example of this. A high-top model, inspired by basketball, which became the most coveted object of desire among collectors. From these was born a project devised by Abloh together with the artist Sky Gellatly, in which the skin of the emblematic sneaker became a white canvas for artistic exchange between Louis Vuitton and selected contemporary artists.
A work that can be admired until March 16, under the title White Canvas: LV Trainer in Residence at the Garage Traversi in Milan; an event that marks the launch of the collection of three contemporary artists invited by Louis Vuitton to reinterpret the legendary sneakers. A posthumous recognition of the designer's work and a tribute to three key figures of the New York underground scene of the eighties: Lady Pink and Lee Quiñones and the late and renowned visual artist Rammellzee.
In a world dominated by men, Sandra Fabara -better known as Lady Pink- quickly became an icon of feminism. Born in Ecuador in 1964 and raised in New York, she was one of the protagonists of the graffiti-based boom and remains a cult figure in the hip hop community.
“When I started in the early eighties I was the only woman,” she stresses. “I was very feminine, I dressed in high heels and I liked to put on makeup. It took me a long time to convince my colleagues that I could measure up”. A glass ceiling that she had to break with a spray can and with which, with time and a lot of effort, she earned the nickname "first lady of graffiti".
The feminist movement of the 70s was not only about empowering women but also about educating men to respect and support the opposite sex. In this difficult subject, Fabara was already in a higher cycle. At the age of 15, between 1979 and 1985, she was painting subway trains together with colleagues and mentors from her sector.
“When we started with graffiti, we dedicated ourselves to painting the subway stations; we needed to see our names traveling all over the city, from Brooklyn to the Bronx.” At that time, with a small body and less than 45 kilos, he also ventured into dangerous neighborhoods in search of some industrial warehouse where he could display all his art. She later had a starring role in Wild Style, the first film of the hip hop movement released in 1982, a milestone that made her a cult figure in the community.
At the age of 21, Lady Pink exhibited for the first time solo at Moore College of Art. “They started booking me for exhibitions, I was traveling and advancing my art career. I was close to finishing high school and I was specializing in architecture, but my fame kept growing and we rode the wave. Although we imagined that it would be just a fad, we saw that a lot of money was paid for our work”.
As a leading figure in the rise of urban art, his canvases have entered important art collections such as the Whitney Museum, the MET in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands.
