Unveiling Theaster Gates Exhibition #3: “Black Library & Black Space” Section
2024.7.8 [Mon]
For Theaster Gates, the collection, preservation, and stewardship of Black cultural spaces and archives over the course of fifteen years has been a radical and durational practice. He has rescued, cared for, and reactivated an array of abandoned buildings and objects, including the personal effects left behind by artists and friends who have passed, or ephemera from sources that played a vital role in his community - a church, a prominent publisher of Black magazines, record shop, hardware store, and so on - but were demolished or went out of business.
Gates, deeply influenced by the values of Shintoism - namely, the life within things - dedicates a significant portion of his practice to honoring and recontextualizing articles and places left behind.
This “Black Library & Black Space” section offers a glimpse into part of that archive.
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