Theaster Gates: Collecting | Art21 "Extended Play"

Episode #247: From his Chicago studio, Theaster Gates reflects on the various collections he has acquired and created artworks with, including the Jet magazine archives and the inventory of an entire hardware store. In addition to serving as source material for the artist, the collections provide Gates with insight into how one person or institution sees the world. “It's like this little time capsule of things that were important to someone,” he says.
The majority of the collections come from his immediate surroundings on Chicago’s South Side. “How do you catalog the everyday, especially as the phenomena of the everyday is changing?” Gates asks, “And is this another way of tracking Black space?” The materials function as an archive when shown in their original state, or they can be amalgamated and transformed into a painting or sculpture. “It's the thing, and it's the thing that makes the thing,” says the artist.
Theaster Gates creates sculptures with clay, tar, and renovated buildings, transforming the raw material of urban neighborhoods into radically reimagined vessels of opportunity for the community. Establishing a virtuous circle between fine art and social progress, Gates strips dilapidated buildings of their components, transforming those elements into sculptures that act as bonds or investments, the proceeds of which are used to finance the rehabilitation of entire city blocks. Many of the artist’s works evoke his African-American identity and the broader struggle for civil rights, from sculptures incorporating fire hoses, to events organized around soul food, and choral performances by the experimental musical ensemble Black Monks of Mississippi, led by Gates himself.
Learn more about the artist at:
art21.org/arti...
CREDITS | Producer: Ian Forster & Nick Ravich. Interview: Stanley Nelson. Editor: Morgan Riles. Camera: Brian Ashby, Damian Hennessey, Ben Kolak & Christoph Lerch. Sound: Alex Inglizian & Grant Tye. Artwork Courtesy: Theaster Gates, Regen Projects & White Cube. Music: Outrun, SANMI & Soft and Furious. Additional Footage Courtesy: White Cube. Photography Courtesy: Milwaukee Art Museum / John R. Glembin. Special Thanks: Kunsthaus Bregenz.
Art21 "Extended Play" is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; 21c Museum Hotel, and by individual contributors.
TRANSLATIONS
Translated subtitles are generously contributed by our volunteer translation community. Visit our translation team at Amara for the full list of contributors:
amara.org/en/v...
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[@keilitzb]

I love his obsession and art vibe......

[@XCORINTHIAN]

So good.

[@Jack_all]

brilliant..

[@JETBLACKSNOWWHITE]

“It’s the things and the thing that makes the thing”

[@abstractbybrian]

I love the one that was all black with one book of orange in the upper left. That gave me so many ideas for more abstract paintings. I do wonder, where does one get there money to do all of this. I mean the binding is expensive I would think. How do projects like this get funded?

[@catharinesomerville-wilson6676]

Invigorating

[@hoomalumalu]

how does he get the money for this?

[@joshporter5205]

Seriously. I was thinking that as soon as I saw his studio.. much less when he started talking about all these collections.

[@audreyh6628]

Showing the commercial products of a store he bought for presumably what was a large sum of money doesn't feel to me like a statement much of anything, let alone black space, or forgotten people. Just more empty Capitalism...