The ‘Virgil’ Gremlin

artist profile

13 Nov

Are you a tourist or purist?

In his RISD speech, Virgil Abloh talked about ‘the tourists and the purists.’ When you go to Paris, are you visiting the Eiffel Tower or the Zadkine Museum, or both? The ‘tourist vs purist’ is a concept that there are some of us whom are tourists in this world, we dip into main stream pop culture without pushing the edges. Then, there are some of us whom are relentless in our seriousness of the game, and we are almost border-line pretentious in our opinion and knowledge.

The tourist is eager to learn whilst the purist thinks that they know everything. Abloh liked being the messenger between both worlds - he enjoyed taking joy into niche spaces and in exchange bringing provocation to the mass.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, this week felt surreal because I witnessed things I had once dreamt or prayed for. In 24 hours, I dipped into three different worlds that seemed to contradict each other; a suited and bald headed ‘developing future cities’ conference, followed by a luxurious insight into the world of Hermès and capped by a meeting at the Houses of Parliament. From the public to the princes in varying forms of money, power and, well… access.

In other news…

Here are some colours and paintings I’m working on

Aahhh yes soothing yellows and blues. What a nice way to end a blog post.

Till next time you beautiful beast.

K X

The different worlds got my head in a spin because I, a brown Gremlin from South Wales, wasn't shown how to navigate these foreign worlds. As I watched from the outside, the plays of power that the Kings and Queens manoeuvred seemed so apparent - air kisses, aggressively strong hand shakes and side glances of judgement between genuinely heartfelt encounters felt confusing. I felt as though I was watching a game of society chess. Well, ‘what if I can somehow bring elements of these worlds into others worlds?’ I thought.

What would it look like to take the investment of attention, money and devotion to craft that I saw in Hermès to the planning sector? What would it look like to take a hands-on approach to public research to the Parliament? And what would it look like to demand responsibility to public welfare upon luxury fashion brands? Of course these are all concepts, however there is something interesting in prodding the gap between opposing worlds. How can we find the bridge between the tourists and purists?

Because at the end of the day, we serve both. I/we are both.