ART CITIES:London-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.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: White Cube Gallery Archive
Featuring a new body of work, Theaster Gates’ solo exhibition “Afro-Mingei” draws attention to aesthetic modes and classifications; to pre-determined ways of understanding culture and to how these emerge from and connect to history, race and society. Theaster Gates studied urban planning and ceramics in the 90s and is currently professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. He travelled to Japan to learn new techniques in pottery and an interest in craft and Japanese culture continues to permeate much of his work. In this exhibition, two key strands of his work: Japanese philosophy and Black identity, combine to forge a new aesthetic; one that attempts to retrace cultural roots that are often submerged and forgotten within the structure of what Gates terms “Western-White sameness”. The title of the exhibition refers to both black identity and Japanese philosophy, and it is not the first time he has combined these two cultures in his art. With his 2007 exhibition “Plate Convergence” Gates staged a performance based on a fictional backstory to a ceramic plate he had made. The narrative concerned a character called Shoji Yamaguchi, who emigrated to Mississippi, where he married a local black woman and Civil Rights activist. The exhibition was rounded off with a Japanese soul-food dinner. “Afro-Mingei”, deliberately blurs and brings together distinct cultural identities, each with their own rich history of aesthetics. The term “Afro” refers to both African-American culture as well as to its iconic hairstyle, re-appropriated during the 1960s and 1970s by Black post-civil rights leadership as a symbol of Black identity and empowerment. The Japanese term “mingei”, coined by the philosopher and cultural figure Soetsu Yanagi, along with potters Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai, denotes folk or craft objects made by local, often unknown craftsmen. For Yanagi, craft challenged conventional ideas of art and beauty since it evolved from traditional practices where the divisions between art, philosophy and religion had merged or disappeared. It is within this thematic framework that Gates introduces a series of objects, installations and interventions in the exhibition that address different ways of looking. Incorporating various elements from Japanese culture such as sakazuki and tatami, with elements from Black culture such as African masks, soul and gospel music, they highlight hybridity as a pathway for new conceptual exploration.
Info: White Cube Gallery, 144-152 Bermondsey Street, London, Duration: 24/5-22/6/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, Sun 12:00-18:00, https://whitecube.com
