Theaster Gates
American, 1973-
Soul Food Starter Kit, 2012
Reclaimed wood, paint and ceramic soul food wares
59 x 30 x 22 1/8"
Collection of Marilyn and Larry Fields, Chicago
COMMENTS
Theaster Gates has developed an expanded artistic practice that includes space development, object making, performance and critical engagement with many publics. Gates transforms spaces, institutions, traditions, and perceptions.
Gates’ training as an urban planner and sculptor, and subsequent time spent studying clay, has given him keen awareness of the poetics of production and systems of organizing. Playing with these poetic and systematic interests, Gates has assembled gospel choirs, formed temporary unions, and used systems of mass production as a way of underscoring the need that industry has for the body.
Recent exhibition and performance venues include Locust Projects, Miami, FL; the Seattle Art Museum; Art Basel Miami Beach; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; and the Whitney Biennial and Armory Show in New York. Gates was a participating artist in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany, with his '12 Ballads for Huguenot House'. In Fall 2012, Gates debuted in London with his solo show 'My Labor is My Protest,' at White Cube Bermondsey. Gates will be exhibiting 'Theaster Gates: Soul Manufacturing Corporation--To Make the Thing that Makes the Things' at Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, PA, from January 21 through late Spring.
Gates was recently awarded the inaugural Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics, honored by the Wall Street Journal as Arts Innovator of the Year 2012, and commissioned as the Armory Show Artist 2012. USA Artists named him as the USA Kippy Fellow 2012. Gates is also a 2012-13 Creative Time Global Resident. A Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2011, Gates has received awards and grants from Creative Capital, the Joyce Foundation, Graham Foundation, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Artadia. Gates is represented by Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago and White Cube in London.
- Theaster Gates, Web, 2006-2012
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
BORN 1973, CHICAGO
LIVES AND WORKS IN CHICAGO
Theaster Gates works in a variety of mediums, but the heart of his practice is rooted in ceramics. He has stated, “For a person who really jumps into clay, you start to think differently, you start to think that you have the capacity to transform everything.” The artist enacts such change by purchasing buildings in neglected communities and transforming them into hubs of cultural activity. He then reinvests the funds from his art sales into these and other projects. His practice thus engages various aspects of his background in urban planning, ceramics, and religious studies.
Soul Food Starter Kit and Dinner with the King extend from carefully choreographed meals the artist hosts at his Dorchester Projects on Chicago’s South Side. Cupboards constructed from reclaimed wood—often remnants sourced from building projects—are outfitted with ceramic wares produced by Gates and a team of Japanese potters. These sculptures explore the intimate connection between object, food, and ritual across different cultures. The ceramic “soul wares” evoke the simple, humble forms of pottery used by slaves on American plantations as well as those used in Japanese tea ceremonies.
Labour and Wait, 2013