Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates' practice includes sculpture, installation, performance and urban interventions

that aim to bridge the gap between art and life. Gates works as an artist, curator, urbanist and

facilitator and his projects attempt to instigate the creation of cultural communities by acting as

catalysts for social engagement that leads to political and spatial change.

Gates has exhibited and performed at the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Studio

Museum in Harlem (New York), Whitechapel Gallery (London), Art Gallery of Ontario (Canada),

Punta Della Dogana (Venice) and Documenta 13 (Kassel, Germany), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Austria)

and Foundazione Prada (Milan). He has received awards and grants from Artes Mundi 6,

Creative Time, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and United States Artists. Gates most

ambitious project to date is the ongoing real estate development, known as "Dorchester

Projects". In 2006, Gates purchased an abandoned building on 69th and Dorchester Avenue on

Chicago's South Side, collaborating with architects and designers to gut and refurbish the

buildings using found materials. Gates is the founder and executive director of the non-profit

Rebuild Foundation, which now oversees a network of buildings across the South Side including

Dorchester Projects and the Stony Island Arts Bank, as well as a Professor in the Department of

Visual Art and Director of Arts and Public Life at the University of Chicago.

THEASTER GATES

Biography

1996 Iowa State University, B.S. Urban Planning, Ceramics

1998 University of Cape Town, M.A. Fine Arts, Religious Studies

2006 Iowa State University, M.S. Urban Planning, Ceramics, Religious Studies

Currently lives and works in Chicago

Solo Exhibitions

2017

Tarry Skies and Psalms for Now, White Cube, Hong Kong

The Minor Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington

But To Be A Poor Race, Regen Projects, Los Angeles

The Black Monastic, IHME Festival, Helsinki

2016

Heavy Sketches, Richard Grey Gallery, Chicago

How to Build a House Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Black Archive, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria

True Value, Fondazione Prada, Milan

Processions (performance residency), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington,

DC

2015

Sanctum, Situations, Bristol

Freedom of Assembly, White Cube, London

2014

The Black Monastic (performance residency), Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal

2013

Accumulated Effects of Migration, Kavi Gupta, Chicago

A Way of Working, The Vera List Center for Arts and Politics, New York

My Back, My Wheel and My Will, White Cube, São Paulo; White Cube, Hong Kong

13th Ballad, MCA Chicago, Chicago

To Make the Thing that Makes the Things, Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

2012

Soul Manufacturing Corporation, Locust Projects, Miami

My Labor Is My Protest, White Cube, London

2011

Theaster Gates: The Listening Room, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

An Epitaph for Civil Rights, LA MOCA, Los Angeles, CA

An Epitaph for Civil Rights and Other Domesticated Structures, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL

2010

To Speculate Darkly: Theaster Gates and Dave, the Slave Potter, Milwaukee Art Museum,

Milwaukee WI

Dry Bones and Other Parables From the North, Brunno David Gallery and the Pulitzer

Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO

2009

Holiness in Three Parts, Boots Contemporary Art Space, St. Louis, MO

On Another Note: Extractions from the Chicago Jazz Archive Collection, DOVA Temporary,

Chicago, IL

Temple Exercises, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

Erogenous Wonder, An Installation, Salvage One, Chicago, IL

Symposium on Contemporary Painting, Performance, University of Illinois, Champaign-

Urbana, IL

2008

Yamaguchi in Residence, Experimental Station, one year, ongoing lifestyle performance,

Chicago, IL

Dinner Intervention, Culture Community #1 meets Culture Community #2, Chicago, IL

Representations Series, Talking Series concentrated on the concerns and thoughts of

contemporary artists of color, in partnership with the Experimental Station and

Illinois Humanities Council, Chicago, IL

2007

Artists Connect, Performance Lecture, 16th Century Japanese Aesthetics, Art Institute

of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Uprising, Voice, Violin and Cello, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL

Yamaguchi Institute, Plate Convergence, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL Recreation of

the Candy “Stow,” Acquisition and renovation of a small South Side commercial building

for dinner interventions; recycled materials, local labor, Chicago, IL

Life After Qualls, African American Artists Respond to the works of Michael Qualls.

Performance and sculpture at South Side Community Arts Center, Chicago, IL

Un-housed. Gentrification and the constant need for Space, Architecture and design

conference, Chicago, IL

2005

Rachmaninov and the Slave Spiritual, Piano, Violin and Voice, Ames, IA

The American Negro; Too good to be True, St. George Cathedral, Capetown, South Africa

People of the Mud, An exhibition of 15 ceramic artists, Department of Cultural Affairs,

Chicago, IL

Mississippi Houses, Inax Ceramic Museum, Tokoname, Japan

Facing Fuji: 10 Sculptors in Japan, Tokoname Museum of Ceramic History, Tokoname, Japan

Theaster Gates, Yakimono Ceramics Exhibition, Tokoname, Japan

Group Exhibitions

2017

L’emozione dei COLORI nell’arte, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art,

Rivoli

2016

In Context: Africans in America, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

The Color Line, Musée du quai Branly, Paris

The Underground Museum, Non-fiction, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

2015

Contemporary Conversations, Ottawa Residence, Ottawa

SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul

All the World’s futures, 56th Venice Biennial, Venice

2014

Living in the Material World, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck

Ebony/Jet, Studio Museum Harlem, New York

Artes Mundi 6, Cardiff

Prospects 3, New Orleans

Experiments with Truth: Gandhi and Images of Nonviolence, Menil Collection, Houston

Homeland [IN]Security: Vanishing Dreams, Dorsky Gallery, Long Island City

Made By Brazilians...Creative Invasion, Cidade Matarazzo , Sao Paulo,

When Stars Collide, Studio Museum, New York, NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale

More Material, Salon 94, New York

Living in the material world, Kunstmuseum Krefeld

2013

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, Studio Museum, New York

We'll Make Out Better than Okay, The Charlotte Street Foundation's la Esquina Gallery,

Kansas City

K.L.E.O. Community Family Life Center "Building a better world, one community at a time!"

Mike McCann, Executive Director 119 E. GARFIELD BLVD. CHICAGO, IL 60637 773-363-6941 www.kleocenter.org October 2, 2017 Association of Fundraising Professionals 1717 N. Naper, Suite 102 Naperville, IL 60563

Re: Nomination of Theaster Gates for the 2017 Outstanding Community Leader Award

To Whom it may concern:

Please accept this letter as my support for the nomination of Theaster Gates for the Association of

Fundraising Professionals 2017 Outstanding Community Leader award. I have had the pleasure of

working with Theaster in several capacities, including providing programmatic support for the

University of Chicago Art’s Incubator and with collaborating on KLEO’s 58unit mix-use

development targeting artist residence.

Extremely creative is what I know when I look at his work. His ability to take any type of material

that we consider junk and create art from it, amazes me time and time again. I have watch him

teach others to look at their community as beautiful neighborhood even if they lack the economic

investment their surrounding communities have benefited from. Watching him teach and instruct

children to bring out the artistic being in them is simply astonishing. When a youth says I am not

an artist he proves to them everyone is an artist in some fashion, that is invigorating.

I have known and worked with Theaster for over seven years. Theaster is an intelligent, capable,

dedicated, and personable artist. He is always quick on his feet, with sensible reactions in all the

circumstances I've seen him in. I feel confident in saying that he is an “Outstanding Community

leader”.

Sincerely,

Torrey L. Barrett President/CEO KLEO Center