Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates (b. 1973) lives and works in Chicago. Gates’ practice is plural, multilayered, and critically built on the complexity of the present through deep, sometimes unexpected, material investigations. Trained as an urban planner and potter, his practice has evolved through the re-making of objects, cultural narratives, and places. Over the past decade, Gates has demonstrated the intricacy of Blackness through space theory and land development, sculpture, and performance. Through the expansiveness of his approach as a thinker, maker, and builder, he expands the role of the artist as an agent of change. His performative practice, and visual works find roots in Black knowledge, history, and archives. The artist uses materials as varied as clay, tar, roofing materials, and discarded fire hoses to bring to the forefront the varying nuances and omissions on the record that we, as a community, must acknowledge, and face.

 In 2010, Gates created the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation that supports artists and strengthens communities through free arts programming and innovative cultural amenities in the Grand Crossing neighborhood of the South Side of Chicago. Informed by place and community, Gates’ urban interventions may be better understood through his ambitious and ongoing community revitalization projects including Kenwood Gardens, St. Laurence Arts and Industry (opening in 2023), The Stony Island Arts Bank, and Dorchester Art and Housing Collaborative (DAHC), among other sites.

Gates’ work has been exhibited widely. Upcoming projects include Black Chapel, an architectural commission for the Serpentine Pavilion in London (June 2022) and The Listening House, at the Aichi Triennale in Tokoname, Japan (July 2022).