Theaster Gates

With an eclectic background in urban planning, ceramics and theology, Theaster Gates has forged a unique practice that combines sculpture, installation and performance in a bid to enact social change. Collaborating with architects, researchers, musicians and urban communities, his works challenge the traditional parameters ascribed to the visual arts.

Born in 1970 in Chicago, Gates has made a profound impact on the contemporary art world through his innovative blend of fine art and social practice, using his work to address issues of race, community and the transformation of urban spaces. His materials generally consist of found objects, often gleaned from the neighbourhoods he engages, and are frequently imbued with social and historical significance.

Gates has been widely celebrated for his ongoing real-estate development in Chicago, known as the Dorchester Projects. The initiative began in 2009 when the artist purchased a building on South Dorchester Avenue and transformed it into a library. Gates founded the Rebuild Foundation, working with a team of designers and architects, dedicated to the transformation of buildings and neighbourhoods in South Side Chicago. These spaces, such as the Stony Island Arts Bank, have become cultural hubs that preserve black history and foster artistic expression.

Conceiving art as a powerful means of social rehabilitation, Gates embraces the Civil Rights movement as one of his primary themes. Fire hoses have become a recurring material and motif throughout his meditations on the subject — an example of Gates’s desire to highlight the political agency of ready-made objects. ‘Fire hoses are something you don’t really think of until they’re necessary,’ the artist has claimed, ‘but they’re filled with a real potency: the potential of this tremendous amount of water and water pressure.’

Theaster Gates uses art to engage with history, culture and urban spaces that engender racism, exploitation and the denigration of Black identity. In 2022 Gates unveiled his work Black Chapel for the 21st Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens. The structure was conceived as a space for gathering, meditation and participation, a platform for the public to reflect and connect.

Gates has exhibited across the world in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Shanghai, Milan and Chicago. His works can be found in the collections of Kunstmuseum Basel, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Tate in London, the Studio Museum in Harlem and more. Theaster Gates now lives and works in Chicago.