24 Facts About Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates was born on August 28,1973 and is an American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

Theaster Gates was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he still lives and works.

Theaster Gates was born and raised in East Garfield Park on the West Side of Chicago.

Theaster Gates was the youngest of nine children and the only son.

Theaster Gates's father was a roofer, and his mother a school teacher.

Theaster Gates's sisters passed on their interest in civil rights activism, and the family attended a Baptist church where Gates, a choir member, became interested in performance.

In 2007, Theaster Gates organized a conceptual exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center titled Plate Convergence in which he staged a fictional event as an elaborate backstory for ceramic plates he had made.

In 2008, Theaster Gates created his second fictional institution, with the exhibition "Tea Shacks, Collard Greens and the Preservation of Soul" at a temporary gallery space in Chicago that Theaster Gates dubbed the Center for the Proliferation of Afro-Asian Artifacts.

In 2010, Gates created an exhibition responding to and centering around the work of David Drake, titled Theaster Gates: To Speculate Darkly, at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Theaster Gates is the founder and artist director of the Rebuild Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on cultural-driven redevelopment and affordable space initiatives in under-resourced communities.

Theaster Gates's Rebuild Foundation has renovated two houses on Dorchester Avenue, now called the Archive House and the Listening House.

In 2013, Theaster Gates purchased the Stony Island State Savings Bank from the city of Chicago.

Theaster Gates cites the influence on his own work of, for example, the Chicago ceramicist Marva Lee Pitchford-Jolly.

From 2011 to 2018, Theaster Gates was the founding director of Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago.

Theaster Gates is a full professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the university.

Theaster Gates was the leader of the Place Lab, a partnership between Arts + Public Life and the Harris School of Public Policy, which worked to design and implement new approaches to urban development.

Theaster Gates was participant at the 2012 DOCUMENTA art show in Kassel, Germany, where he exhibited "12 Ballads for Huguenot House", restoring an entire building that had housed fleeing Huguenots in the past and organising events and concerts there throughout the summer.

Theaster Gates was included in "Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft", at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and in 2013 had a solo show, 13th Ballad, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

In October 2015, Theaster Gates created an installation at Temple Church, Bristol, England.

In October 2020, Theaster Gates opened a large scale show at Gagosian Gallery in New York City.

The central installation is the main gallery, which Theaster Gates lined with bricks fired black at a South Carolina brickworks.

Theaster Gates cited the COVID-19 pandemic and the time he spent alone as having created an environment within which to incubate his ideas.

Theaster Gates working as a team with architects Asif Khan Studio, Sir David Adjaye, and Mariam Kamara will undertake The Waterfront Transformation: Canning Dock project, which is part of the 10-year plan of National Museums Liverpool to transform the city's waterfront.

Since 2016, Theaster Gates has been serving on the board of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.