Virgil Abloh: The Codes Comes to The Shed in New York This December

Nearly 1,000 objects from the Virgil Abloh Archive, including a recreation of his Paris office at Pont Neuf, go on view at The Shed in Hudson Yards from December 10, 2026 to January 18, 2027.

By Exqz GuideOctober 21, 20262 min read

Photography by The Shed, Lucas Creighton / IDI, Iwan Baan

Virgil Abloh: The Codes, an exhibition drawn from the Virgil Abloh Archive, opens at The Shed in Hudson Yards on December 10, 2026, and runs through January 18, 2027. The show fills 28,000 square feet with nearly 1,000 objects, selected from an archive that holds more than 20,000 pieces from Abloh's creative practice.

The exhibition is presented by the Virgil Abloh Foundation in partnership with Nike. Its curators are Chloe Sultan and Mahfuz Sultan. Chloe Sultan is also a director of the Virgil Abloh Archive.

Virgil Abloh: The Codes opens at The Shed in New York on December 10, 2026. Photo: The Shed

Virgil Abloh: The Codes at the Grand Palais, Paris, 2025. Photo: Lucas Creighton / IDI

What is on view

The show covers Abloh's work across fashion, footwear, art, architecture, graphic design, music and cultural production. Finished pieces are shown alongside the material that led to them: prototypes, sketches and archival documents.

Two parts of the show go past the objects themselves:

A recreation of Abloh's Paris office at Pont Neuf.
A media lab that gives visitors open access to a selection of his raw design files.

Justin Saunders, founder of JJJJound, co-curated the exhibition's retail experience. A month-long program of conversations, performances and workshops will accompany the run, with details still to be announced.

The Shed describes the exhibition as a love letter to New York, to its people and to the power of dreaming. Shannon Abloh, founder of both the Virgil Abloh Archive and the Virgil Abloh Foundation, has framed the show around the fifth anniversary of Virgil Abloh's death, as a way to honor how he changed the way people think about creativity and collaboration.

The Paris presentation

Earlier editions of The Codes were shown in Miami and in Paris.

The Paris presentation opened at the Grand Palais on September 30, 2025, presented by the Virgil Abloh Archive in partnership with Nike. It was the first major European exhibition devoted to Abloh's work, and it was also curated by Chloe Sultan and Mahfuz Sultan.

That show was built around the idea the exhibition is named for. Abloh's Codes are a set of design principles he intended to apply to any medium, product or space. They are what made his work for Nike, The Ten among it, recognizable as his.