THEASTER GATES

Theaster Gates is an American sculptor and performance artist whose interventions contend with contemporary land development. Drawing from his own training in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces that have been left behind. Known for his recirculation of art-world capital, Gates creates work that focuses on the possibility of the “life within things,” smartly upturning art values, land values, and human values. In all aspects of his work, he contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise–one defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist.

ABOUT THE WORK:

Reliquary is predicated on cultural reclamation and social empowerment, exchanging and recharging objects and ideas, proposing the artwork as a communicating vessel or sacred reliquary of recollected histories, critical vitality, and shared experience. Combining traditional stoneware with fur pelts, Reliquary is a piece made by salvaging and archiving, delivering a penetrating social commentary on labor, material, spiritual capital, and commodity.