Virgil Abloh "Sculpture" Shopping Bag For Sale

Virgil Abloh's "Sculpture" Shopping Bag from 2019 transforms one of consumer culture's most ubiquitous and disposable objects into a permanent artistic statement. Rendered in plastic-reinforced paper and resin/polyester, the work freezes the familiar form of a retail shopping bag in a state of arrested permanence, its crumpled contours and casual creases preserved with the reverence typically reserved for classical artifacts. The piece carries Abloh's signature quotation marks around the word "SCULPTURE," a typographic device he employed throughout his practice to interrogate the nature of naming and categorization—asking viewers to consider whether the label creates the art or merely describes it. This work exemplifies Abloh's career-long examination of the boundaries between high and low culture, luxury and the everyday. The shopping bag, a vessel for consumption and status signaling, becomes both subject and object, simultaneously critiquing and celebrating the rituals of contemporary commerce. By casting this ephemeral item in durable materials, Abloh performs a kind of pop archaeology, treating the detritus of late capitalism with the same material seriousness as a bronze monument. The piece resonates with the legacy of Duchamp's readymades and Koons's consumer iconography while remaining distinctly rooted in Abloh's visual vocabulary of irony, accessibility, and streetwear sensibility. It speaks to his belief that design exists in the tension between function and meaning, between what an object does and what it represents. For inquiries regarding acquiring this work by Virgil Abloh, please contact Guy Hepner.