When thinking about inclusive architecture, an event comes to mind. Speaking at a 1984 dinner honouring the Indian architect Charles Corea, the then Prince of Wales, set out a damning critique of contemporary architecture. He labelled a yet-to-be-built tower designed by Mies van der Rohe as 'yet another giant glass stump' and likened ABK Architects’ proposed extension to the National Gallery to 'a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.' Both projects were aborted, and the heir-in-waiting’s speech is remembered as a devastating attack on the architecture profession. But was it?

Many accounts of that infamous dinner miss the fact that, before turning to his carbuncle quips, Prince Charles had taken a very different tone. He had noted, for example, the potential of housing co-operatives to empower inner city residents; complimented the 'socially useful' architect Ted Cullinan as 'a man after my own heart'; and lamented how few buildings were accessible to wheelchair users. 'To be concerned about the way people live, about the environment they inhabit and the kind of community that is created by that environment,' he declared, 'should surely be one of the prime requirements of a really good architect.' Far from an all-out attack on the profession, the future King was really calling for more inclusive architecture.

What is inclusive architecture?

'Inclusive architecture' is a big term. It’s a vast catch-all umbrella for any urban practice which attempts to better support the wellbeing of historically marginalised groups. Often misunderstood simply as a technical discipline of adding accessibility ramps, handrails, and the like, truly holistic, inclusive design is a more expansive and exciting field spanning everything from the invention of the modern kitchen to the future of education. So huge is the scope and variety of inclusive architecture that no one article could comprehensively cover every dimension of it, but design history is littered with inspiring and instructive examples.

One branch of inclusive architecture that seeks to empower women and people of minority genders is feminist architecture. Matrix Design Co-operative were key figures in the movement during the 1980s, running a non-hierarchical feminist design agency which used participatory processes to create buildings for diverse clients. Their landmark book, Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment is a manifesto cataloguing how city design in the 20th century often ignored the needs of women, parents and children. Many male designers have also striven to create feminist architecture.

The 1982 Mothers’ House by Aldo van Eyck in Amsterdam, for example, is a charismatic institution providing accommodation and support for single mums and their children. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, the investor of the first built-in kitchens in Frankfurt, could also be celebrated as a feminist designer, given how her clever labour-saving furniture emancipated thousands of housewives from many hours of domestic toil.

Another approach to inclusive architecture is through child-centred design. Caring architects have rightly realised how children are excluded by the modern cityscape. While many designs for kids resort to gaudy, colourful paint rather than more sincere attempts to understand what young people need, the best child-led architects have created meaningful work without patronising their young clients.

The immense 'fog forest' in Tokyo’s Showa Kinen Park by Atsushi Kitagawara Architects, for example, provides an incredibly generous landscape for open-ended play. Elsewhere, the German architect Peter Hubner designed schools in collaboration with their future students, using 1:20 spatial models to sketch classroom designs in 3D. More recently, the Reggio School in Madrid by Office for Political Innovation was also designed in dialogue with its pupils and features an indoor tropical jungle to help science teaching.

A particularly complex theme for inclusive architects is race. How can architecture better express and include the ethnic, faith and cultural diversity of diaspora communities? One answer to that question is the Rebuild Foundation founded by artist Theaster Gates, which has restored derelict buildings in Chicago, transforming them into civic institutions celebrating black culture. In Gates’ work, the line between whether the architecture itself is intrinsically inclusive or if it is the way the spaces and places he has transformed are put to use that makes them inclusive is deliberately blurry.

Historic philanthropic architecture like almshouses were built by wealthy patrons to support the less fortunate, but rarely took into account the views of those they were supposedly there to serve. A recurring theme within the field of modern inclusive architecture today, however, is the centrality of developing designs in consultation with those who will actually use them. In creating the Mount Pleasant hostel, Peter Barber Architects, for example, worked with homeless people whose lived experience of using the previous hostel was invaluable in shaping designs for the upgraded facility. In a similar way, good architects no longer simply consider the needs of physically disabled and neurodiverse users but actively seek input from expert design consultants with direct experience.

A giant and still-evolving constellation of practices, perspectives and priorities, inclusive architecture has shifted gears from well-meaning projects made for people to buildings and places made with people. The real mark of the best inclusive architects, from Matrix to Gates, is marrying their professional skills and characterful design talent with the embodied wisdom of the communities they seek to empower – creating designs that are more than the sum of their parts.

It’s a bright morning in Abu Dhabi, and 40 journalists from around the world are filing into a soft circular structure resembling a mini duomo. There’s a perceptible mood switch from the cubic gallery-slash-bar where we had all been drinking green juices moments before, sort of akin to entering a church on a blinding summer’s day. Voices hush, eyes adjust to the dark, and people find places to sit on the plush terracotta-coloured carpet. In comes the man we are all here to meet, the radical urban planner, spiritual potter, and internationally acclaimed artist who is the mind behind this year’s edition of Prada Mode: Theaster Gates.

‘I thought that I would go kindergarten style and just try to keep it as simple as possible,’ the Chicago-based artist says, explaining the energetic duality of the site-specific installation he has built in the MiZa district of the city, a burgeoning creative neighbourhood along the waterfront that was once a working port in the 1970s. ‘When establishing the emotional infrastructure of a project, the first few words are really important. I started by saying: “The show will be based on a circle and a square.” The circle, in my case, representing community, democracy, the feminine, the creative; the square representing the rigid and infrastructural. I hoped that would be enough of a prompt that great things would emerge.’

Inside Prada Mode Abu Dhabi, hosted by Theaster Gates

If you’ve not heard of it before, Prada Mode is an immersive arts-led programme that merges installation, music, food, and performances, held in culturally exciting cities around the globe. Starting with Carsten Höller in London back in 2008, each edition has been guided by the vision of an artist, with past iterations shaped by Damien Hirst, Martine Syms, and Kazuyo Sejima (one half of RIBA Gold Medal-winning Sanaa). Uniquely, Gates is the only artist to have hosted Prada Mode three times. As a social aggregator driven by a mission to ‘invite people to engage, participate, and collaborate’ – to ‘wake things up’ – he has approached this year's edition with the aim of offering a new perspective on a city often misunderstood by the West.

Gates was born the youngest of nine and the only boy in his family. The son of a teacher and a roofer, he was raised to understand the value of learning and making things well. He trained in sculpture and urban planning, but it was a visit to the small Japanese town of Tokoname to learn the craft of pottery in his twenties that shaped his philosophy as an artist. There he saw how a clay pot can be practical, used to drink tea every morning; or spiritual, carrying the ashes of a loved one. He began to approach the ‘vessel’ as a metaphor for the multiplicity of life, and has, ever since, seen his practice as a way of honouring the ‘spirit within things’.

‘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,’ he once said. Much of the forces that have powered his later work – to study, to record, to endure, to seek connection – can be traced back to Tokoname, he tells the room in Abu Dhabi. ‘From 2004 to 2024, I maintained a relationship with this small town, and kept talking about pots until the world was ready to talk about pots. I'm always telling people they should stay on their square, and eventually, maybe the world will be interested in the things you are.’

Gates applies this sense of grounding to Prada Mode Abu Dhabi. Rather than replicating the ‘bombastic’ party machine of past years, this time the artist wanted to be a bit more circumspect. ‘Driving around, you can't go a mile without running into really significant mosques,’ he says. ‘The sacred is present in everyday life in the UAE. I thought we would try to bring some of that here.’ First devising the installation space of the square and the circle – one expansive, where drinks flow and DJ sets bring an energy of celebration; the other a cosy embrace, a place to learn and reflect – then he thought about ways to bring the spiritual in. He decided the best way to do this would be through the voices of Arab women.

‘These kinds of projects can be so male-heavy,’ Gates explains. ‘I'm accounting for the gender biases that I've benefited from. I have eight sisters and I’m always thinking of them. If there's ever a platform to yield, I would like to yield my platform to the sisters.’ Leaning on curator Myrna Ayad and NTS founder Femi Adeyemi, Gates devised a programme spotlighting female talent from the UAE and Arab diaspora. These included talks with female artists reflecting on ideas of tradition and modernity, traditional weaving workshops with Awatef Al-Mesmari, explosive performances by girl band Seera and DJ Nooriyah, and delicious food by Salam Dakkak. ‘The idea was to start an artistic work by paying attention to what's present in front of you,’ Gates explains. ‘What's locally sourced, in terms of materials? What's locally harvested? In terms of knowledge, what's present? There is nuance here, and it's about the unearthing of that discovery.’

Meanwhile, in the square space, an image curation printed on cotton sails gently flutters in the breeze. These were printed with images from Gates’ archive of 60,000 decommissioned glass lantern slides saved from the University of Chicago, depicting ancient artefacts, architecture and culture relating to the Middle East. ‘Beyond the circle and square, I was like, ‘What are people going to look at?’’ he says. ‘I was thinking about the UAE and the ways in which the West has constantly tried to understand it, but understand it to conquer or corrupt or absorb. I said to my team, “Let's pull up everything that feels in some way connected to the sacred.” It's a gross survey that is functioning as a kind of art history, architectural history, archaeological history.’

While Prada Mode is ultimately a party, Gates has used it as an opportunity to tell stories about the UAE that matter. The space reminds you of a few of his most moving projects. Namely, his regeneration of the neglected street he grew up on in Chicago, where two decades ago the artist saved a dilapidated house and transformed it into a library filled with 14,000 art books. Later, he turned the house next door into a listening space full of salvage records, then opened a soul food spot between the two. Awakening the road while attracting makers and artists, these sites have become vital archives of Black history and living, breathing places for community to gather.

Gates’ elegiac Serpentine Pavilion, Black Chapel, also comes to mind, created in 2022 as a tribute to his father after his passing. A circular structure reminiscent of the one in MiZa, it was inspired by the curves of a clay pot and the tarred materials his father used to repair roofs every day. Here too, a cultural programme of music, performance, and shared ideas that brought the installation to life. In every instance, it would seem, Gates reveals how his artwork itself is secondary to the people his projects unite. Really, they are vessels for connection.

It’s sites like this – where music, ideas, and tradition are shared – that are the reason Gates has such a close relationship with Prada in the first place. Miuccia Prada first met the radical artist in the basement of storied Soho jazz club Ronnie Scott’s in 2012. Gates was performing with his band The Black Monks and was in London for the opening of his show In the Event of a Race Riot at The Arts Club, a display of powerful works made from decommissioned fire hoses. The pair became instant friends, and the designer has brought Gates firmly into the cultural fold of the house in the years since, making him a co-chair of its Diversity and Inclusion Council, displaying two exhibitions at Fondazione Prada, and giving him free rein on projects like Prada Mode and the Experimental Design Lab, which offered a platform to young Black creative voices. ‘Prada's a family company in Italy,’ Gates says with a convivial laugh. ‘They could use some diversity, if you know what I mean.’

Speaking with natural wisdom and humour, Gates is a joy to listen to. One of the most interesting things he says about his practice comes at the end of the talk in the womb-like duomo, where he says he doesn’t see himself as a ‘community artist’, despite spending decades making art that unites people and ideas through space. ‘My project was not about Chicago as much as it was about demonstrating that there is wealth and riches right in front of you,’ he explains. ‘I'm not a community artist. I'm not a community activist. I'm just a guy. But my practice depends so much on having a willingness to be present with people who are great, in a place that is great, even though others haven't recognised yet how great it is.’

Here it feels like Gates is touching upon the West’s preconceived ideas of Abu Dhabi, perhaps as a place shaped by conservative values and explosive wealth. Driving around the city, it’s true that the lavish scale of its seven star hotels and newly built monuments – such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, inside which are housed several of the world’s most valuable artworks – are a surreal sight to behold in all their glittering newness. Gates' celebration of the city, however, looks beneath the sparkly glamour of high rises and malls to the human: celebrating Middle Eastern traditions of hospitality, vibrant new voices in music and art, and the universal act of gathering.

‘We couldn't be here without the generosity of this place,’ he points out. ‘Without its belief in culture and fashion, but also a belief in itself. By pivoting from the party, I hope we can just be in dialogue and celebrate great voices. Celebrate them here.’

Prada Mode is open to the public today, 14 February 2025. Register here.

prada.com

Michael Bennett might not be a household name in the design world, but in the realm of American football, he is as big as it gets. He played an incredible 11 seasons with the likes of the Dallas Cowboys, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as winning the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, before retiring from the sport in 2020. A prominent anti-racist campaigner, who frequently spoke out against the injustices of the sport, Bennett’s many efforts included setting up an endowment at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2021 to enable more people of colour to get into design.

Michael Bennett: design rooted in community

‘In some ways, design has always been a part of my life,’ says Bennett, who is a graduate of the Heritage School of Interior Design and is currently finishing an architecture degree at the University of Hawaii. ‘My grandpa was a welder. He built his church with his own hands, and we would make things. I never thought of them as being designed, but we built a shed, a barbecue grill and stuff for the hog pen.’

Now Bennett marks a new chapter in the form of Studio Kër, a design studio he established in 2020, that took full form after he met the late industrial designer Imhotep Blot in 2021. Together, they drew from their shared upbringings in the coastal American south, and their African and Haitian roots, to create a collection of sculptural furniture that explores themes of intersectionality, segregation and the American ghetto, alongside the identities and experiences of African Americans and the diaspora. Each piece is rooted in the ideas of place and community through references to historically Black cultural motifs and object-histories, and consciously challenges dominant Western domestic codes.

‘I think that every object has the ability to be what someone wants it to be,’ says Bennett. ‘That’s how I like to think about design. There is no true idea that everything has to be one way. There’s a lot of that going on in architecture and design. You’re forced to follow this European way of thinking. If you ask 100 people for their gumbo recipe, no one will tell you the exact same one. Our collection is interesting and unique. It’s not the same thing over and over. When you hold these objects, there’s this sense of communion and closeness of what it’s like to be Black in America.’

It’s apt that Studio Kër’s first collection focuses on the home. Even its name, Kër – which refers to the traditional family living arrangements and sense of togetherness within Wolof culture, the largest ethnic group in Senegal – exudes a deep reverence for this fundamental and universal typology. Bennett and Blot have reimagined domestic mainstays, such as tables and seating, while imbuing them with poignant references to Black history. The ‘Gumbo’ lounge chair draws from the ubiquity, democracy and versatility of DC Simpson’s 1946 stacking polypropylene ‘Monobloc’ chair. Realised in fibreglass with a matching cushion that can be laid on top of it or on the floor, the lounge chair signifies a new approach in African diasporic design while retaining the same emphasis on fellowship, exchange, utility and generosity that’s present in Black gathering spaces.

Equally meaningful is the ‘Mo-Mo’ dining table, a large circular table designed to seat up to ten people. It’s inspired by Akili Ron Anderson’s bas-relief frieze Last Supper (1982), which was commissioned by the New Home Baptist Church in Washington DC and only recently discovered, in 2019, after decades hidden behind drywall. Topped with a central rotating tray for distributing food, it reinforces the studio’s ethos of designing pieces that encourage communion and discourse while also nodding to West African griots (storytellers) and the Black matriarchs behind them.

‘As a Black person growing up in America, you have these rituals and traditions, but you don’t understand the connection. You think it’s a singular event, but, in reality, it’s a chain of events and suddenly gumbo isn’t a Southern thing, it’s an African thing. There’s a twist to it that makes it American. So in a sense, this collection is about Black history. These forms are African, but they also have a twist of America and that’s where the new diaspora meets in the middle to dialogue with the past,’ he says, adding that even in details like the asymmetric spines of the ‘Paw Paw’s’ dining chair, which is available in African Sapele or Argentine rosewood, there are nods to the forms and geometries traditionally seen in West African culture. ‘As a Black designer, you have to be able to tell stories of your history because not a lot of people have the platform.’

Despite the unexpected passing of Blot earlier this year, Bennett has continued on the path to bring the duo’s designs to life. ‘It’s been emotional. He was young, just 27,’ he says. ‘We went really deep into what African design is and what the future of design is for Black people. We wanted to create an archive, and document the process of Black design. To this day, I don’t think I have really dealt with losing him. He’s not here, but the main thing that we always talked about was how do we create something that outlives our physical beings and becomes a part of the universe.’

Studio Kër’s debut will be shown in Chicago by LA gallery Marta and Theaster Gates’ Rebuild Foundation in a presentation titled ‘We Gotta Get Back to the Crib’. On view until 11 February 2024, it will be the first design intervention to inhabit Rebuild’s newest creative project, 6 Flat, which will become artist residences when the formerly vacant St Laurence Elementary School reopens as an arts incubator (Rebuild's past projects include the Stony Island Arts Bank). The show will later travel to Marta in LA and then Houston.

‘As Black people, we have to travel to white galleries to see things. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have things in these spaces, but I also think that there is an opportunity for people of colour to experience things within their own community in places that are already there,’ says Bennett. ‘Also, does it have to be a white box? If we expect things to change, then we can’t always use the same systems over and over. We have to start rethinking them. Having this show at Rebuild speaks a lot because what Theaster Gates is doing culturally is phenomenal. It’s important that, as Black people, we see design happening within our community. Because once we see design, we start to think about how we can use it and about rebuilding.’

Michael Bennett, ‘We Gotta Get Back to the Crib’ is on view until 10 Feburary 2024

6 Flat, Rebuild Foundation
6760 S Stony Is Ave
Chicago, Illinois

Most artists would consider their first museum survey on home turf as an opportunity to celebrate personal successes. But for Theaster Gates, the Chicago-based artist, urbanist, musician and cultural icon it is also a chance to pay homage to the radical thinkers and creative forces who came before.  

Gates’ first American museum exhibition, ‘Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces’, opens 11 November 2022 at the New Museum in New York. In developing the show, he first drew from his native Chicago. Thinking about the local 1960s political group, Young Lords, and then about his personal cultural deities – such as bell hooks, Okwui Enwezor, Virgil Abloh, Sam Gilliam and Theaster Gates Sr, all of whom have passed – the exhibition is what Gates describes as ‘a personal pantheon’ and ‘a kind of memorial for different individuals who had an impact on my life and culture’.

The full range of Gates’ multidisciplinary practice, which spans pottery, found objects, sculpture, painting, video and performance (and was explored in Wallpaper's 2021 Theaster Gates interview) is showcased in an epic, site-specific installation that spreads over three floors. The museum becomes a communal space for preservation, remembrance and exchange. As one ventures through the show, there is an emotional cadence that prompts contemplation, whether it’s walking into a spacious room dominated by one of Gates’ libraries, in this case, 4,500 volumes belonging to the film and Slavic studies scholar Robert Bird (a friend of Gates, and former colleague at the University of Chicago, who passed away in 2020) presented on cast-iron Carnegie shelving; viewing a sample cross-section of the artist’s extensive collection of objects and ephemera, encased in 100-year old wooden vitrines from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; or hearing live music being played on A Heavenly Chord, Gates’ construction of a Hammond B3 organ with seven Leslie speakers suspended overhead. (The piece will be activated on most Saturdays throughout the show’s duration – check the museum's calendar.)

‘Young Lords and Their Traces’ presented me with the artistic time and space to grieve the lives of people who have been important to me. The New Museum is a site of mourning and mischief, an antidote to the darker emotions we experience when we lose someone who made us, whom we love, or who represents the things we believe in,’ Gates says. ‘Through this exhibition, I’m expressing that artists are not exempt from complex human emotions caused by death. The exhibition doesn’t feel like a survey of objects that I’ve made in the past. Instead, it feels much more like a survey of the ways the material world and the ancestral world come together. Art moves us because art functions as a visible mechanism for the display of deep emotion. Mourning and loss were emotions understood before there was art.’ 

He adds, ‘Making, remembrance, and the accumulation of one’s things are cultural tasks that demonstrate that art and loss have always been aligned. I hope those who experience the exhibition will consider the importance the material world plays in honouring those close to their hearts. I hope they are moved to create minor museums or shrines to those who had a profound impact on their lives, elevating the material to a higher plane. I consider creation the antithesis of death, but I am also moved to remain connected to and conversant with the great spirits who have left us. One could say that my being engaged with the elegiac is oblique, but it’s my way of keeping people alive.’ 

Viewing 20 years of work through this lens certainly reiterates Gates’ profound ability to convey meaning and significance through objects. ‘‘Young Lords and Their Traces” demonstrates a deepening of my artistic interests in objecthood,’ continues the artist. ‘In Chicago, the personal objects, the traces and the collections were always informing our work with our building projects. This show allows visitors access to the part of my brain that has always been engaged with the intimacies of other people’s lives and their possessions. 

‘While there isn’t much of a divergence, I do think this exhibition sharpens my commitment to the archive, ceramics, and narratives associated with the histories embedded in materials. This survey feels much more “essential” in its pronouncement of some of my artistic investments. The question of religious social form and how it is embedded within the history of art demonstrates more profoundly that an object, like the cross, can both say so much and hide so much about people’s deepest intentions, dogmas, and alliances. I wanted to demonstrate that my belief in form-making is as deep as my belief in believing.’

The unmissable show is complemented by 'Vestment', an exhibition of new tar paintings by Gates at Gagosian Gallery's uptown space. In this series, the artist explores religious iconography as politically galvanising devices, while exploring spiritual and stylistic hierarchies and the symbolism and universalism of nationhood. Experimental in colour and made using roofing techniques in homage to Gates' father's profession as a roofer, this new body of work looks back as much as it looks forward.

‘Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces’, until 5 February 2023, New Museum, New York. newmuseum.org, theastergates.com

‘Theaster Gates: Vestment’, 11 November–23 December 2022 Gagosian. 976 Madison Avenue, New York. gagosian.com 

How do you create a sacred space? Theaster Gates seeks to resolve this question with Black Chapel, his design for this year’s Serpentine Pavilion. It’s a fitting task for the Chicago-based artist, who has received international acclaim for his community and cultural interventions in Black space, particularly on the South Side of Chicago.

Nestled in London’s Kensington Gardens, the monumental black pavilion, realised with architecture studio Adjaye Associates, at once conjures up traditional concepts of the chapel, but also is securely rooted in the ideas of monumentality, taking up space, and disruption by way of creating peace and tranquillity. Instantly imposing, yet quietly meditative, it is a confident and sure statement and testament to Black communities, encouraging quietude, reflection and a retreat to nature. ‘I hope that folks from further afield than Hyde Park can find solace in this space,’ says Gates. Standing in his chapel, looking up at the oculus, it feels apt to transport oneself back in time and consider the Pantheon.

The Pantheon, completed around 126-128 AD during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, is one of the best-preserved monuments of ancient Rome, with its focal feature being a rotunda with a massive domed ceiling that has formed a lasting inspiration in the minds of artists and architects alike. The largest structure of its kind when it was built, the Pantheon is situated where an earlier structure with the same name, built around 25 BC by Marcus Agrippa, once stood. It is thought to have been designed as a temple for the gods.

At 16m in diameter and 10.7m high, Gates’ chapel is the largest Serpentine Pavilion to date, with a 201 sq m cylinder that dominates with formidable yet comforting grace. Gates’ architectural references include the beehive kilns of the American West, the traditional forms of Cameroon’s Musgum mud huts, Uganda’s Kasubi Tombs, and industrial structures such as bottle kilns in Stoke-on-Trent (the heart of the British ceramic industry).

Here, Gates draws on his own ceramic practice whilst connecting with the history of religious structures such as a 16th-century Tempietto in Rome designed by Donato Bramante, the Umbrian architect who would later design St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Meaning ‘little temple’ the Tempietto is a small, circular church whose design mixes the aesthetic intentions of sculpture with the spiritual ideals of an ancient pagan temple, resting heavily on and honouring Classical aesthetics – a style popular during the Italian Renaissance, and assuring harmony and order. The elements are mathematically proportioned, a unity and simplicity also achieved in Gates’ investigations into clay. Black Chapel fuses spirituality with a multicultural High Renaissance.

The concept of a sacred space finds its origins in the very beginnings of civilisation, with iterations and reimaginings appearing in various cultures. It is significant – a universal construct that proves its necessity and healing power in its prominence and recalibration throughout history. Sacred spaces such as Black Chapel introduce meaningful experiences to the vast, homogenous expanse that city life can envelop us in.

Who are Gates’ gods? ‘I want to encourage Black presence,’ he asserts.

Gates, through a robust set of programming curated with the Serpentine, will activate the Chapel. And so we witness a hierophany, as interventions and activations of the pavilion seek to fundamentally alter our relationship with space and time. The measure of any architectural structure is its ability to transcend the contemporary and the historical, to transport those within into a world of the artist's design, and thus achieve a purpose. For Gates, this is to give form and space to Black meditative sound, convert the monastic to the contemporary and, as he divulges, ‘encourage ideas about performance and aesthetic traditions’.

As is typical in Gates’ practice, music is a fundamental component of the pavilion, which will host church choirs, experimental piano composers, and jazz musicians, building up to October’s closing performances by Grammy award-winning singer Corinne Bailey Rae and Gates’ ensemble The Black Monks, whose music offers a powerful celebration of Eastern monastic sound with the soulful musical backbone of the American South. Sitting outside the chapel is a large bronze bell, salvaged from St Laurence, a demolished Catholic church and landmark of Chicago’s South Side. Gates is known for excavating abandoned buildings such as St Laurence for new meaning, and previously exhibited a statue of the patron saint.

For his pavilion, Gates was inspired by the ‘transcendental environment’ of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas – home to 14 dark-hued paintings by abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. Gates’ new series of seven tar paintings – using layered, blow-torched roofing materials that reference his late father’s trade as a roofer – live in his Black Chapel. The artist knows that light is powerful. The history of the Rothko Chapel set an artistic precedent for this lesson: for almost five decades, the light in this chapel was not right. The Texas sun blasted through the original transparent skylight, obliterating the vision of dusky paintings and hindering the spiritual encounter Rothko envisioned for the space. 

In Black Chapel, Gates has achieved a resolve and a future-thinking piece that honours many legacies. The oculus anointing us with grey London light is a poignant reminder of the power of nature, and of looking up. It is a window to consider an ever-changing world; as sunlight brings joy, and the nocturnal sky fascinates with a sense of the unknown, we too can be blinded by the light, and overpowered by nature. Historically, religions have used these experiences of light to emphasise the mysticism of their deities, echoing this idea in the design of buildings. Here, Gates encourages us to consider the mysticism of contemporary life.

The interaction of lightness and blackness in the chapel thus conjures a socio-political juxtaposition and focus. Bathed in the grey-white light from our cloudy skies, it is a place for all to congregate, and a welcoming gesture to the Black community. Looking up, we consider all that we hope for. We all look at the same sky – we always have. 

Gates’ chapel is a unifying devotion to the spiritual as a force to connect, provide safety, and encourage thinking beyond the limits of this world. Urgent and politically ambitious, Black Chapel believes in inspiration and healing as a catalyst for progression. Gates, who is dedicated to a social practice that revives communities, has brought his spirit to London. Let the legacy unfold.

INFORMATION

Black Chapel is on view at the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens until 16 October 2022. serpentinegalleries.org

Serpentine Galleries has revealed plans for its 2022 pavilion, titled Black Chapel, designed by American artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, with the architectural support of Adjaye Associates.

In a design rendering released today, 3 February, the pavilion – which will follow Counterspace’s installation for the annual commission last year – appears as a towering cylindrical structure bisected by a pair of rectangular doorways, with a domed roof that culminates in a single oculus. A low wooden barrier lines one side of the pathway to the pavilion, likewise paved in wood, leading to a panelled façade. The structural honesty of the design – there’s fluted exterior above the panelling and visible frameworks on the interior – contrasts with its considerable scale and deft manipulation of natural light. An accompanying statement describes the pavilion as ‘a sanctuary-like environment for reflection and communion’.

Serpentine Pavilion 2022: a space for music, poetry and dance

While the Serpentine Pavilion 2022 structure is predominantly in wood (which has a lower carbon footprint than brick), its form is reminiscent of the great kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, the ceramics capital of the UK. As such, the pavilion serves as the final chapter of ‘The Question of Clay’, a multi-venue presentation by Gates that previously included solo London art exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery and White Cube Mason’s Yard, as well as an intervention at the V&A ceramics galleries.

A bell, originating from Chicago’s St Laurence Church, will be placed at the pavilion’s entrance. Following the church’s demolition, Gates salvaged various architectural elements including the bell for his installation Martyr Construction at the 2015 Venice Biennale. At Kensington Gardens, the bell will once again toll to announce performances and activations, including Park Nights, the Serpentine’s programme of live encounters in music, poetry and dance.

The pavilion shares its title – Black Chapel – with an installation that Gates presented at Munich’s Haus der Kunst in 2019, at the invitation of the late museum director and curator Okwui Enwezor. Gates had filled the museum’s central atrium with ‘artefacts of Blackness from my life, to demonstrate the power embedded in the Black experience,’ he explained at the time. By naming the pavilion after his previous installation, Gates wishes to acknowledge ‘the role that sacred music and the sacred arts have had on my practice, and the collective quality of these emotional and communal initiatives.’  

The new Black Chapel brings together multiple facets of Gates’ life and work – his spiritual upbringing, his passion for music (he sang in the church choir, and continues to perform with his band, The Black Monks), his exploration of the joys and pains of Black life, and his ceramic art practice. It also reflects his fascination with architecture and placemaking, as seen in his lifelong quest to revitalise Chicago’s South Side one derelict building at a time.

‘I have always wanted to build spaces that consider the power of sound and music as a healing mechanism and emotive force that allows people to enter a space of deep reflection and deep participation,’ he says. To minimise its environmental impact, Black Chapel has been designed to be fully demountable. There are plans to re-site the pavilion to a permanent location after four months in Kensington Gardens, so it can serve as a space for gathering and contemplation in years to come.

INFORMATION

serpentinegalleries.org; theastergates.com

One of the most talked-about fashion designers in current times, Grace Wales Bonner, founder of the British fashion label Wales Bonner, is known for using her mixed-race heritage as a jumping off point for her collections. Primarily known for her menswear (though she does produce womenswear as well), Wales Bonner has become a force to be reckoned with, not only because of her impeccable craftsmanship but also her dynamic ability to weave explorations of Black sexuality and identity in sartorial form.

Since launching her eponymous label in 2014, Wales Bonner has created a complex world that embraces multiple disciplines and proposed a new vision of luxury that fuses the Eurocentric perspective with an Afro-Atlantic approach. ‘My research is quite broad, so it can be quite musical. I’m very methodical about it – my musical research I do around a certain timeframe. Then I think, right, what kind of textures work in the context of that sound. It builds upwards,’ she reveals. ‘Usually it starts from literature. I’ll have some books or poems in mind and then build a visual world around that, and then a musical world around that, until I have this complete sensory world that’s a hybrid of different things.’

Grace Wales Bonner: design encapsulating a complete sensory world

Far from being confined to garments, Wales Bonner’s love for other art forms such as music and photography has also led her to curate her own exhibitions, most notably ‘A Time for New Dreams’ at Serpentine Galleries in 2019, which explored the idea of shrines – a theme inspired by Robert Farris Thompson’s notable book Face of the Gods. Connecting spirituality and mysticism with the material, the exhibition brought together shrines created by a range of collaborators, from artist Rashid Johnson to the musician Laraaji, to embody Wales Bonner’s love for cross-pollination in an unadulterated form. 

It’s no surprise that Wales Bonner’s poetic approach to representation has made her a beacon of inspiration to Theaster Gates, who tipped her as one of 25 creative leaders of the future for Wallpaper’s 25th Anniversary Issue ‘5x5’ project. ‘Grace’s unparalleled commitment to historical research on the modes of fashion over the last 500 years makes the style of her work undeniably unique and rigorous,’ he says. ‘From garments that reflect literary characters to collaborations with Adidas making handcrafted sportswear, Grace offers a new lens and platform through which to consider conversations on race, identity, and sexuality. Her quiet intensity and strategic approach to studio management will continue to rock the design world.’ 

INFORMATION

walesbonner.net

A version of this article appears in Wallpaper’s October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue (W*270), on newsstands now and available to subscribers – 12 digital issues for $12/£12/€12.
Meet more creative leaders of the future nominated by architect Theaster Gates here.

The life and work of artist Theaster Gates are famously intertwined with Chicago – the city where he was born, raised, and continues to be based, whose South Side neighbourhood he has revitalised and transformed one building at a time. Lesser known, but no less interesting, is his long-standing affiliation with London. He remembers his first visit vividly: in 1998, while a master’s student at the University of Cape Town, he came to the British capital on a holiday and visited the Crafts Council Gallery. ‘I remember being so excited that I could see a Julian Stair work, and a Michael Cardew, a Shoji Hamada, and a Bernard Leach,’ he says, listing the ceramic artists who would come to shape his artistic practice. ‘It was a very important time for me.’

A subsequent sojourn, in 2012, was just as formative. Soon after Documenta 13, where Gates showed 12 Ballads for Huguenot House (restoring an abandoned hotel in Kassel, Germany with labour and materials from a derelict South Side building), he arrived in London for his first exhibition with White Cube, which involved suspending a fire truck from the ceiling of its Bermondsey gallery, with a cabinet full of Ebony and Jet magazines on its tether. Titled Raising Goliath, the work pointed to culture as a way to alleviate the Black American struggle. The audience ‘was so kind and generous, and my practice really flourished’, recalls the artist. ‘London has been like my second home. And while Londoners can be quite critical of a bad exhibition, because I’ve had such good reception in the past, I’m very excited to offer this proposal to this place that I love so much.’

Theaster Gates’ London cultural takeover

The proposal he refers to is ‘The Question of Clay’, an ambitious project involving some of the city’s top cultural institutions: a solo exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery (until 9 January 2022) and an intervention in the V&A’s ceramics galleries this autumn, followed by a commission to create the 2022 Serpentine Pavilion. Add to this a show at White Cube Mason’s Yard (until 30 October 2021), and you have the biggest takeover by a single artist that London has witnessed in recent years. A seminal moment for sure, but Gates, who has become one of America’s leading cultural figures, feels no cause for anxiety. ‘Now that I have no more points to prove, I would use these next years to really share and explore my interest in ceramics. The shows are all varying exposés around craft, craftsmanship, the cultural connections between places, and my training as a potter.’ 

In parallel with his conceptual inclinations, Gates has always had a fondness for craft. He took up pottery as an undergraduate student at Iowa State University, eventually completing a residency in Tokoname, Japan, where he worked with a group of master potters. His 2007 exhibition ‘Plate Convergence’, often considered his breakthrough moment, showed a collection of his pottery, only disguised as the work of a fictional Japanese potter who moved to Mississippi and married a Black civil rights activist; three years later, his show ‘To Speculate Darkly’ paid homage to Dave the Potter (also known as David Drake), an enslaved 19th-century artist who created extraordinary stoneware pots. Gates believes that training in craft involves ‘thinking with the hands’ and is a necessary complement to the study of art, history, and philosophy: ‘If you bring contemporary art and craft together, you have the best of two really amazing worlds.’

Not surprisingly, craft was the starting point for the Whitechapel Gallery show. In 2015, Gates and Lydia Yee, the then-newly appointed chief curator at the gallery, sat next to each other at a lunch in Venice. They talked about ‘Spirit of Utopia’, a 2013 group show at Whitechapel for which Gates had installed Soul Manufacturing Corporation, a working pottery studio where visitors could learn how to make bricks and throw clay on a wheel from a skilled potter. Gates registered his interest in doing a follow-up show, thus kicking off a series of conversations. ‘And the more I talked to Lydia, the more I thought, there are so many places in London that have amazing craft histories and things in their vaults, but they’re rarely seen in a contemporary light. Could we connect with these places?’ Gates wondered. He thus set on a path to draw from other collections to create a history of ceramics, displaying the work of his artistic ancestors alongside his own.

An invitation from the V&A to undertake a research fellowship came at the right time. Given free run of the museum’s ceramics collection, Gates naturally gravitated towards craft potters he long admired. He was particularly interested in those who worked across different cultural contexts, such as Leach and Hamada, who co-founded the Leach Pottery in St Ives a century ago; and Ruth Duckworth, who fled Nazi Germany, studied in London and became known for monumental stoneware murals in Chicago.

But Gates also took the opportunity to explore more practical uses of clay: searching for the oldest bricks in the collection – including one marked with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled Babylon in the sixth century BCE – and surveying the output of the Wedgwood factories, which represented the apex of 19th-century industrial manufacturing. He sought out ‘perversions’ within the collection too, namely ceramic figures of enslaved Black people from the early 19th century, some serving double duty as tobacco jars or candlesticks; though commissioned by abolitionists, these figures have exaggerated physical features that perpetuated racial stereotypes. A selection of these ceramics have made their way to Whitechapel, complemented by loans from other public and private collections (including a storage jar by Dave the Potter, who is not yet represented in the V&A collection).

‘The V&A was so excited that a contemporary artist was interested in these things,’ says Gates, who characterises the museum as an extremely open environment, deftly confronting its colonial past by championing openness, equity and diversity. ‘All the big institutions have the challenge of making right these complicated paths, and the only way to do that is to open your museums up to more artists of colour, more queer artists, artists across the gender spectrum, people who are trying to say new things with old objects.’ 

In this case, the juxtaposition of old objects – such as 18th-century Chinese earthenware, an emancipation medallion commissioned by Josiah Wedgwood, a series of Black ceramic caricatures, and Dave the Potter’s storage jar, all within in the same vitrine – speaks to the relationship between global trade, colonial expansion, slavery and abolitionism.

They accompany Gates’ own ceramic work across two decades, including his ‘Afro-Mingei’ sculptures, which incorporates Japanese elements with the culture of Africa and its Diaspora. For instance, a 2019 piece, titled Afro-Ikebana, comprises a bronze cast of an African mask paired with a rotund ceramic vessel containing a single branch, presented on a tatami mat. 

‘I’m trying to couple Mingei, the folk craft movement in Japan, with the Black Arts Movement in the United States. In this moment [in the 1930s] Japan was saying, “Who we are is beautiful, we don’t need Western culture to reaffirm our beauty and the importance of our craftsmanship and our people.” In the United States 20 years later, Black people were saying, “Our hair and our skin are beautiful, and the objects and foods of our culture are important.” The resistance to a certain kind of Western whiteness created both movements, which I’ve brought together. That very strong philosophical meld led to a material meld, which is very exciting to me.’

Also part of the show are Gates’ new stoneware vessels, installed on custom plinths of hand-milled wood and stone, referencing African sculpture, the human body, and industrial and utilitarian objects. Many of these were made at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Montana, where ceramic artist Peter Voulkos had begun his career in 1951. Voulkos’ work ‘is very material and muscular, masculine and action-oriented’, describes Yee. ‘He would often work in an improvised way, even down to allowing some degree of chance to happen in the kiln. Some of the work that Theaster has made is in response to this.’ 

Gates additionally brought his band, the Black Monks, to Montana to make music that explores themes of craft labour and spiritualism; at Whitechapel, their performance becomes part of a new film that explores the history of clay practice in the UK, US and Japan. The spiritual aspect ties in with the title of the show, ‘A Clay Sermon’.

‘Theaster grew up in the Baptist church in Chicago, and he’s said that he learned about art every Sunday by going to church: the aesthetics, the way people put themselves together, the music. I think that goes very much to the fact that music, and the community spirit of being part of a church, is integral to his work today,’ explains Yee, adding that Whitechapel Gallery has a similar history of community engagement.

‘A Clay Sermon’ coincides with Gates’ intervention at the V&A. ‘Because they are loaning me works from their ceramics galleries, I will replace those works with my own, so their vitrines are not empty. There’s a little bit of trade happening, and I think it’s an interesting way to get people into the museum,’ hints the artist.

Serpentine Pavilion 2022

And while the design of his 2022 Serpentine Pavilion is yet to be unveiled, Gates is brimming with enthusiasm for the commission and already eager to talk about it, unfazed when I point out that he will be the first non-architect to take it on (previous participating artists have partnered with architects – Ai Weiwei with Herzog & de Meuron, and Olafur Eliasson with Kjetil Trædal Thorsen). ‘I’ve restored a lot of buildings,’ says Gates of his work on the South Side, through the Rebuild Foundation. ‘And while I’m not a trained architect, I think about space more than anything. Black space, especially, is core to my practice. And I feel that making space is such an amazing power move within art, for people like Robert Irwin, Sam Gilliam, Donald Judd, or Hiroshi Sugimoto. I’m part of a continuum of artists who have been thinking about disruptions and interventions in the public sphere and in nature – in my case, the urban environment in a Black neighbourhood.

‘My art has always been kind of land art. So if we can open up the architectural project to one that is actually concerned about land, its politics and complexity, then it seems quite reasonable that not only me, but more artists in the future, will do substantial things [with the Serpentine] commission.’

The first thing about making a space, Gates contends, is to create the conditions for a gathering of people, which is why he’s thinking not only about physical architecture but also ‘the sound system, the food, the energy, the lighting’. Since 2013, he’s run an annual gathering called the Black Artists Retreat, and he hopes that his Serpentine Pavilion ‘will be a place where we might also convene, converse, party, reflect, and celebrate together’.

Looking at the various elements of ‘A Question of Clay’, it becomes clear that Gates wants us to engage deeply with art, design and architecture, not just taking them at face value but also understanding their social function, and the political implications that come with putting them on display.

‘Sometimes politics are on my mind, and sometimes the colour red. And I want to have self-permission to talk about either. There are moments when a truth should be shared, and I don’t want to hide behind the colour red, out of fear it would diminish my artistic practice. Some people choose not to talk about politics because it can be a little messy. I never want to lose that courage. I want to grow in courage to be as sophisticated in my knowledge in politics, as I am in my belief in colour.’

Exemplars of Black excellence

It follows naturally that Gates’ creative leaders of the future for Wallpaper’s 25th Anniversary Issue ‘5x5’ project would be creators of elegant, distinctive forms who are advancing a social message with equal confidence. His pick of five talents are exemplars of Black excellence in Britain and the United States, ranging from fashion to architecture to furniture. He lauds shoe designer Kendall Reynolds, co-founder of the Kendall Miles brand, for delivering ‘an elegance, luxury and femininity for Black women’, menswear designer Grace Wales Bonner for ‘offering a new lens through which to consider conversations on race, identity and sexuality’, and fashion and textile designer Tolu Coker for being ‘a fierce advocate for Black models and models of colour’.

Gates selected architect Germane Barnes for being ‘unafraid of uprooting contemporary notions of scale, ideological complexity, or boundaries within his design. He moves me to have deep conversations about what design can achieve for the masses.’

Also on the list is Norman Teague, a more established talent who worked with Gates on 12 Ballads for Huguenot House. ‘Brother Teague designs collaboratively, thinks strategically, and is committed to training Black and brown makers. His determination and design vocabulary continue to inspire me,’ Gates enthuses.

He acknowledges that his mentors – among them artists Kerry James Marshall and Ingrid Lilligren, curators Okwui Enwezor and Thelma Golden – had a major role in shaping his practice, encouraging him to study abroad, learn about other cultures and indulge in craftsmanship. ‘Those moments were very important to me, and I’ve always tried to create opportunities to have that time and space to speak to younger people, to offer them support and advice.’

With support from Prada Group, Gates has just launched the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a three-year programme that will provide emerging artists of colour with opportunities for exchange, training, critical feedback and exposure. 

‘I’m trying to mimic what I was blessed to receive,’ says Gates. ‘And I’m excited to be able to invest financially, invest emotionally, invest lots of different kinds of resources into designers, artists and other creatives so that they can do more of the great things they want to do.’

Meet Theaster Gates’ five creative leaders of the future: 

• Kendall Reynolds
• Grace Wales Bonner
• Norman Teague
• Tolu Coker
• Germane Barnes

INFORMATION

theastergates.com

‘Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon’, until 9 January 2022, Whitechapel Gallery, London, whitechapelgallery.org

Theaster Gates: ‘Oh, The Wind Oh, The Wind’, White Cube Mason’s Yard until 30 October 2021

A version of this article appears in the October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue of Wallpaper* (W*270). Subscribe today – 12 digital issues for $12,£12,€12

Although only 26, the British-Nigerian fashion designer Tolu Coker is already poised for greatness. A graduate of Central Saint Martins’ BA in fashion design and textile print programme, Coker launched her eponymous fashion label in 2018 and has since used it as a vehicle for creating equity and social change.

‘I’ve always been interested in the concept of identity and the role which clothing plays in how we navigate and perceive ourselves and others in society. Clothing is such a significant part of our identities, it creates a visual commentary of who we are at any given time, and plays into the perception of how the world sees us,’ she says. ‘I consider myself more of a multidisciplinary artist, with clothing being just one of the many forms through which I have conversations.’

Tolu Coker: creating for equity and social change

Coker’s vision for her label has been largely influenced by her time spent interning and working in the fashion industry at other labels. ‘I felt like the industry had a tendency to design around ideals and ideas of a person or consumer that didn’t exactly exist; one which we were expected to aspire and assimilate to, as opposed to drawing inspiration from real experiences and interactions with people that exist,’ she reflects.

‘I’m British-born, with parents of Yoruba descent and so part of my identity derives from this fusion of different cultures. I’ve come to learn that many other people across the diaspora may relate to this notion of their cultural identity being particularly complex, fluid and nuanced. I personally for a long time felt disconnected from the fashion industry, but felt connected to craftsmanship and design. Establishing my own label was rooted in trying to create a safe, inclusive and diverse space that I felt myself and others could exist in and explore autonomy in fashion.’

Rooted in community, craftsmanship and cultural inclusion, Coker’s label is vibrant and sophisticated in both ethos and silhouette. The largely genderless collections are backed by sustainable practices that include manufacturing locally, ensuring fair wages are paid and using deadstock fabrics and upcycling waste materials where possible.

‘Tolu’s work is absolutely amazing. It is bold. It is feminine,’ says artist Theaster Gates, who tips her as one of 25 creative leaders of the future in Wallpaper’s 25th Anniversary Issue ‘5x5’ project. ‘I love that there is a part of her work that references so many great Black moments at the same time. She is a fierce advocate for Black models and models of colour. I’m extremely moved by her.’ 

INFORMATION

tolucoker.com

A version of this article appears in Wallpaper’s October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue (W*270), on newsstands now and available to subscribers – 12 digital issues for $12/£12/€12.
Meet more creative leaders of the future nominated by artist Theaster Gates here.

As widely-recognised as the creative polymath Theaster Gates is, his latest show at Gagosian New York, significantly titled ‘Black Vessel’, is still the artist’s first-ever solo exhibition in the Big Apple. A majestic display of sculpture, clay vessels and works on canvas, the exhibition showcases Gates’ poetic ability to layer facets of art history, sound, racial ideology, culture and Black history in a practice that stands for both social empowerment and cultural reclamation.

For this momentous showing, Gates presents four genres of work. In an ode to the title of the exhibition, he has first assembled a collection of 30 vessels, each unique in size, shape and form. With one eye considering the vessel as an archetype through the canon of art history, Gates creates his own versions as a metaphor of contemporary existence, as one might expect.

‘I always find myself returning to the vessel. It is part of the intellectual life force of my practice and it precedes all other forms of making,’ he states, nodding to his training as a potter.

In Gates’ hands, the universality of the vessel as a repository of ritualised significance is put to the fore. His series of large-scale pieces, made from glazed and fired clay, not only draw from the ancient traditions of Eastern, Western and African origins, but also from contemporary aesthetics too. Freestanding or paired with specially made plinths and pedestals, the array of forms and silhouettes elude time and place with their wonderfully varied textures, surfaces and tones.

The archaeological-like display of ceramics is poignantly offset by the west gallery – an enveloping chamber made of black bricks, upcycled from remaindered stock, that stands almost like a vessel itself. Complemented by a sound installation scored by Gates, the installation adds another spiritual dimension to viewing the statuesque objects.

Intervening with space is also the foundation of another arresting work, Walking Prayer, which is ongoing since 2018 and utilises a wide-ranging historical collection of published books on Black experience. The tomes are nobly displayed on vintage Carnegie cast iron shelving that transforms a library setting into a place of worship.

Speaking about his dynamic approach to his work, Gates shares, ‘My body is capital, my brain is capital, my hands are capital, and the byproducts of my hands are capital. And once I understand my own value, I think about spatial value, the value of other people, the value of people working together, the possibility of exponential value as a result of certain kinds of bodies rubbing up against each other.’

The final component of the show, a suite of tar paintings that are inspired by Gates’ father’s livelihood as a roofer, sees the artist manipulate typical building and construction materials like industrial oil-based enamel, rubber torch down, bitumen and wood, into imposing large-scale wall works that echo the style of postwar American artists.

Dynamic, self-referential and beautifully realised, the four-part survey of Gates’ artistic practice is a captivating reassurance of just how deep he is ready to go.

INFORMATION

’Black Vessel’, until 19 December, Gagosian, New York. gagosian.com

ADDRESS

Gagosian
555 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

For his first exhibition in France, artist Theaster Gates has dredged up a dark and largely unknown fragment of American history. It concerns Malaga, a small island off the coast of Maine where, until 1912, a self-sufficient maritime community lived in relative isolation. Because the 40 residents represented a mix of African or partial-African descent at time when racism remained largely unchecked, they were evicted by the state so that Malaga Island might be transformed into a desirable tourist destination. This never happened; and the island remains uninhabited to this day. Yet within the Palais de Tokyo are a series of new monumental works, including a short film, through which Gates interprets and commemorates the larger history of colonial practices.

‘I’m trying to suggest what happens when you take real history and fake history and force it into a form like modernism,’ he explained during a preview of the exhibition. The show’s title, ‘Amalgam’, is a near-perfect anagram of Malaga; but more importantly, its meaning as a mix of elements (from materials to religious denominations) becomes the leitmotif under which Gates creates these evocative hybrid works.

Highly respected for his approach as a ‘social practice installation artist’, which essentially encompasses his pot-making and activism alike, Gates recently accepted Prada’s invitation to co-chair a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, a new initiative that aims to elevate voices of colour within the company and throughout the fashion world. Incidentally, the exhibition falls during Black History Month in the United States. In France, meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron’s favourable stance on the restitution of ‘tribal art’ has become an ongoing issue with far-reaching ramifications. Gates and curator Katell Jaffrès may not have directly addressed either subject in his show, yet they give his complex cultural representations irrefutable relevance.

And so, the visit begins with a structure resembling a giant rooftop covered in slate shingles. This sloping form positioned on the floor gives the impression of a house that has been buried – whether under earth or water. The dimensions are roughly that of a Malaga Island cabin and Gates has christened it Altar, as though imbuing its humble construction with sublime significance.

Further on, the Island Modernity Institute and Department of Tourism is a multi-part installation consisting of traditional African artefacts, made-up archival documents and obsolete mementos (such as old records) that depict the Malaga people as a pseudo-archaeological study and subject of fascination. Within a vitrine on the central podium, neon green signage reads: ‘In the end, nothing is pure’, which Gates said applied as much to his ‘ways of making’ as something racially charged.

In his 20-minute film, Dance of Malaga, Gates has spliced imagery of interracial cultural moments with the slow-moving, torqued choreography of American dancer, Kyle Abraham, who was filmed on the island. The Black Monks, a music collective to which Gates belongs, composed a score that sounds alternately ominous and meditative.

The final work exists as an immersive space where ash tree pillars – some topped with bronze casts of wooden African masks – are meant to both honour the forgotten people of Malaga and suggest how the island’s ecosystem has proven resilient. Through this forest of organic steles, visitors can wander and wonder whether the effect is calming or haunting. The title, So Bitter This Curse of Darkness, seems to declare a tragic end. Yet to hear Gates describe his first visit to Malaga in mostly positive terms might suggest otherwise. Despite arriving on a cold, damp day, what he remembers most is ‘feeling comfortable, alive and good.’

‘Amalgam’ is part of the Palais de Tokyo’s spring programming, titled ‘Sensible’, which runs until 12 May and also features creations by Angelica Mesiti, Julien Creuzet, Julius von Bismarck, Louis-Cyprien Rials and Franck Scurti. Elsewhere in Paris, Gagosian has devoted two floors to Gates, exhibiting works such as Yellow Hose, a large canvas paneled in a fire hose and his striking Black Madonna effigy in bronze.

INFORMATION

‘Amalgam’ is on view until 12 May. For more information, visit the Palais de Tokyo website

ADDRESS

Palais de Tokyo
13 Avenue du Président Wilson
75116 Paris

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Following a $10 million expansion and the removal of one controversial work of art, an iconic sculpture park in Minneapolis reopens to the community.

Much has been said about Los Angeles artist Sam Durant's large-scale sculpture Scaffold, which collages the architecture of seven hangings carried out by the US government, ranging from the gallows of abolitionist John Brown to Saddam Hussein and the 38 Dakota Sioux whom President Lincoln ordered to be hung in 1962 in Mankato, Minnesota. Debuted at Documenta in Kassel in 2012, Scaffold was read as a condemnation of state-sanctioned execution. But five years later, in the Walker Art Center’s newly expanded Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, it was a barbed reminder of a deep and brutal trauma.

Referring to another work in the park, Katharina Fritsch’s brilliant-blue rooster and its move from Trafalgar Square to American poultry country, Walker Art Center executive director Olga Viso said, ‘When you change the context of the work in the local community it brings these interesting local associations.’ Only days later, Dakota elders associating Durant’s piece with genocide called for its incineration near Fort Snelling, the site where the executed had been interred.

Viso and Durant were quick to apologise and comply, handing the full intellectual property rights to Scaffold over to the tribe. The museum delayed the scheduled 3 June completion of the sculpture park’s $10m year-long renovation, so that it could be dismantled and removed.

Hahn/Cock, by Katharina Fritsch, 2010-13, Minneapolis

‘I take full responsibility for the missteps that have been made here,’ Viso told the StarTribune, describing these events as a ‘very painful’ public lesson. The controversy surrounding the piece unravels the very vision behind the sculpture park's renovation, one of greater inclusivity, social awareness, and public engagement through design.

When the park first opened in 1988, the garden subscribed to a 20th-century idea of stewarding art within a fortress, closing itself off in protective rows of pines and bermed walls. The expansion was carried out for the past year by an extensive team that included landscape architects Tom Oslund and Petra Blaisse, and architect Julie Snow, who took the walls down, as well as adding more points of entry, and five new acres.

Scaffold was one of 18 new pieces that brought the garden’s artworks into the 21st century, the first curatorial update since its inception. Works like Theaster Gates’ Black Vessel for a Saint and Nairy Baghramian’s Privileged Points breathe new diversity and critical viewpoints into the public space, while Fritsch’s absurd and commanding Hahn/Cock stands up is to Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s 1985 Spoonbridge and Cherry, the longtime centrepiece of the garden. Raising environmental sustainability and lowering its footprint, the Walker also installed a greywater system to feed the fountain below the iconic sculpture and transformed the garden’s conservatory into an open-air pavilion, removing the need to keep its interior at 75 degrees year-round.

As of now, the pieces of Durant’s sculpture are being stored by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board as the Dakota elders reconsider their initial plans to burn it. The garden held its ribbon-cutting ceremony on 10 June, with a freshly repainted cherry and a new path that leads visitors past a James Turrell Skyspace up to the top of Wurtele Upper Garden, newly contoured by Dutch landscape architect Blaisse and providing an impeccable vista. It’s emblematic of a museum that, despite its stumbles, recognises the importance of new points of view.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Walker Art Center website

ADDRESS

Walker Art Center
725 Vineyard Place
Minneapolis, MN 55403

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS
 

The shining light flowing into the Fondazione Prada has been hindered for a slight moment. Over the summer months, the windows have been plastered in pop coloured cartoons, but with a subject matter that couldn’t be farther away from playful animation.

This enveloping piece is part of ‘TTT – Template Temples of Tenacity’, a three piece exhibition by multimedia artist Nástio Mosquito. These run in unison with Theaster Gates’ latest show ‘True Value’ in the same location – both interact with day-to-day rituals and trial them to new levels, marking a strong political moment at the Foundation.

But these two shows definitely don’t get tangled. While one openly invites a pious sentiment through choir performances and stained glass windows, the other focuses on a political message via the use of everyday products.

Mosquito’s piece in the windows is strongly titled WEorNOT. Inviting people at the entrance, this is a new site specific piece, illustrated by Ada Diez and produced by Mosquito’s collective Nastivicious, which he devised in collaboration with Vic Pereiró back in 2008. Transforming the Fondazione’s atrium into a ‘contemporary temple’, the vivid stained glass etchings evoke a psychedelic style, but here the figures have guns in hand, stand on philosophical and religious readings, or are in battle. ‘The artist invites us to his most critical endeavour yet,’ curator Elvira Dyangani Ose says. ‘Entering a space and time where judgment and evaluation are suspended, where things do not necessarily need to make sense, where – if one is up to the challenge— we are encouraged to lose ourselves in our own innate sensitiveness.’

Gates’ message is just as powerful, but with a more subtle delivery. Recreating a colour-coordinated hardware store environment on the first floor, the rough and raw pieces hone in on everyday survival. Titled True Value like the show itself, the layout delves into the products as symbols of power and struggle, via the people who encounter them. 'It alludes to the disappearance of local activities and pays tribute to the ready-made and everyday sphere,’ Gates divulges. ‘[It] denounces the failures of capitalism in valuing the individual, or tells the difficulties of a black neighbourhood that is struggling to find a new centre.’

The notion of 'you have to be there' is definitely emphasised with the duo of exhibitions as they both go deeper into their critique with separate performances and events. Mosquito has collaborated with musician Dijf Sanders, artist Chilala Moco and The Golden Guys choir for a performance I Make Love To You. You Make Love To Me. Let Love Have Sex With The Both Of Us and has plans for a cinematic audiovisual piece, Synchronicity Is My Bitch: The Cinematic Experience, in September. Meanwhile, 'True Value' will host a series of public meetings of debates and readings.

INFORMATION

'Nástio Mosquito: TTT – Template Temples of Tenacity' and 'Theaster Gates: True Value' are on view until 25 September. For more information, visit the Fondazione Prada website

ADDRESS

Fondazione Prada
Largo Isarco
2, 20139 Milano, Italy

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If there is a Guinness World Record for the longest piece of performance art, then surely by 6pm on 21 November 2015, the American artist Theaster Gates will have broken it (sorry, Marina). The Chicago-based artist yesterday unveiled one of his most ambitious endeavours to date – Sanctum – that will see an uninterrupted, 522-hour programme of sound ring out from the bombed ruins of Bristol’s Temple Church.

Of course, such an undertaking would be impossible alone. And so, Gates has turned to the city’s brimming pool of musicians, performers, spoken-word artists and more to contribute to the round-the-clock lineup.

The programme, scheduled by MAYK and produced by Situations, has deliberately been kept secret. Visitors might chance on a rousing gospel choir or they may find themselves alone with a poet in the early hours of the morning. This element of surprise is an intrinsic part of the installation, and was a conscious decision to differentiate it from the multitude of Bristol’s gig offerings.

Temple Church – currently in the care of English Heritage and not usually open to the public – was almost lost during the first night blitz on Bristol in 1940. From its ashes rises Gates’ first public project in the UK, who has breathed new life into the site with a specially built structure made from the discarded remains of local sites of worship and labour.

Timber, bricks and doors have been sourced from former Georgian houses across Bristol. The Salvation Army, meanwhile, gifted bricks plucked from the now demolished 19th century Bristol citadel in St Pauls, while flooring has been made using doors from a former chocolate factory in Easton. After years of dormancy, the shell of the 14th century church is once again serving as a place of congregation.

‘In some ways this project was attempting to make space inside of a sacred space that people might connect with another and continue this sound work,’ explained Gates at the opening of the installation. ‘Sanctum is primarily a platform on which the people of Bristol have an opportunity to hear each other.’ To wit, the programme not only features local artists but those passing through Bristol, who contribute to the city’s fabric if only fleetingly.

Sanctum was inaugurated last night by the City of Bristol Pipes and Drum band, while soul singer Celestine Walcott-Gordon and her band soon followed with a stirring set. Over the course of the next 23 days, Sanctum will be graced by the likes of Ushti Babba (expect Balkan rhythms and Celtic melodies); improvised musical compositions from Sleepdogs; Count Bobo’s Jamaican rocksteady; and even the whir of a potter’s wheel – a nod to Gates’ affinity for pottery.

Sound will be explored in traditional and unconventional fashion alike, giving Bristol a voice louder and more pitch-perfect than ever before.

INFORMATION

‘Sanctum’ runs until 21 November 2015 and is open to the public 24 hours per day. Entry is free, but capacity is limited. Guaranteed entry times can be reserved from £5 here

ADDRESS

Temple Church
Temple Way
Bristol BS1 6HY

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