Ceramics 7 THEASTER GATES T
o inaugurate the contemporary programme of the
Albuquerque Foundation Museum opening, renowned US artist Teaster Gates (b 1973) is presenting a solo exhibition featuring a floor of black ceramic tiles made in Japan, displayed in Europe for the first time. Tis minimal yet moving intervention, designed for the audience to walk upon, serves as the basis for a series of Gates’ own sculptures alongside a selection of pieces he personally curated from the Albuquerque Collection. Te layered histories embedded in each object intersect and create tension, offering a cross-cultural interplay of influences that is already reflected in Gates’ work. Tis dynamic arrangement invites viewers to explore the Albuquerque Collection as a site where nothing is quite as it appears. In his practice, the
Chicago-based artist has created new models for legacy buildings and social transformation in the making of his art. Encompassing sculpture, painting, ceramics, video, performance, and music, his work both derives from and sustains ambitious urban renewal projects, creating hubs and archives for black culture, which serve as catalysts for discussions on race, equality, space, and
materials that have historic and iconic significance to repurpose them through his own artistic lens and within the context of modernist art historical tropes. He is popularly known for
LISTEN
to an interview with Theaster Gates revealing his
formative creative influences
history. His work weaves together personal and cultural narratives, creating objects that speak to a particular time and place, and to the arc of American history. Te artist trained as both a
sculptor and an urban planner, and his practice contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise, defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. Gates’s Civil Tapestry series, tar paintings, and roofing works, all engage with found or discarded material from his neighbourhood in Chicago. He specifically seeks out
large-scale projects that transform vacant buildings into works of art. Gates has said that he is motivated by a desire to ‘re-envision place... not just as an art project, but as a way of living’. To encompass these ideas, Gates’s practice includes sculpture, installation, performance, urban intervention and land development. Trough his earlier works as an artist, archivist, and curator, the artist sought to instigate the creation of cultural communities by acting as catalysts for social engagement that leads to political and spatial change. His relationship with clay
Installation view of the Theaster Gates exhibition at the Albuquerque Foundation. Photo: Nikolai Nekh
has been a focal point of his practice since studying pottery in Tokoname, Japan, in the late 1990s. For Gates, clay is a metaphor for his ability to take on greater challenges in the world; as he has said, ‘I think that studying clay helped me understand that ugly things, muddy things, or things that are unformed are just waiting for the right set of hands’. One of the most
memorable works by
Teaster Gates that achieved an almost mythical status over the years, consisted of a series of dinners he held as an homage to his mentor, Yamaguchi Shoji, a Japanese potter who had allegedly settled in Mississippi many years before, attracted by its special clay. Tere, Yamaguchi married a black woman and together they built and ran a pottery where they developed a unique ceramic style, blending Asian and African American techniques. More recently, Gates coined the term ‘Afro-Mingei’ to express the power of the combination of different creative traditions, namely the politically and racially charged Black aesthetics and Chinese, Korean, and mainly Japanese ceramic tradition, in which the concept of mingei highlights the ineffable beauty of ordinary and utilitarian everyday objects made by unknown craftsmen. Teaster Gates is
interested in the truth and wisdom that fictional narratives can carry, and his fascination with the real and potential modes of melting different cultures can be seen as both utopian and down-to-earth.
• Until 1 June, Albuquerque Foundation,
Portugal,
albuquerque.pt
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Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Black-Hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump (detail), Calcutta, 1778, watercolour. Gift of Elizabeth and Willard Clark, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Black-Hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump (detail), Calcutta, 1778, watercolour. Gift of Elizabeth and Willard Clark, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Black-Hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump (detail), Calcutta, 1778, watercolour. Gift of Elizabeth and Willard Clark, Minneapolis Institute of Art
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