You Gotta See This Virgil Abloh Show

The curator of “Virgil Abloh: ‘Figures of Speech’ ” (Brooklyn Museum, through January 29) wants you to read a letter.

past the ticketing booth, you’re presented with two long tables. Look right, and on the floor are some of his DJ flyers. He was a prolific DJ—his DJ name was Flat White—and he would make these flyers that had everything from friends’ faces to set lists to Kerry James Marshall paintings. He used the United Nations logo as his DJ logo, and when the U.N. got wind of this, they wrote him a cease-and-desist letter. On the wall above the flyers is the actual letter, framed, and it’s called

Cease and Desist. His ethos as an artist was this idea that you take what you need and ask for forgiveness later, just throwing the middle finger up to the powers that be. He was a darkskinned six-two Black man. The world was literally not designed for him, so his project was to redesign the world in ways that made it easier for him to pass through it, and that gesture with the logo is a testament to his project.