This World-famous Artist Has a New Show in Chicago-Here's What to Know

"Before he was an internationally acclaimed artist, Theaster Gates was known to the people in his life as a keeper of old and discarded things. In the mid 2000s, Gates was working as an arts administrator at the University of Chicago, while also buying derelict buildings on the city's South Side and turning them into artists' studios or repositories for his collections of books, records, and photographic slides."

"Twenty years and many thousands of objects later, Gates is a professor of visual art at the University of Chicago and a Guggenheim Fellow, and has collaborated with Prada. His work-which often examines Black American culture in the form of mixed-media installations-has been shown at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., London's Serpentine Gallery, and the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris."

"His latest exhibition, "Unto Thee," which opened September 23 at the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art, unites his own work with pieces from the university's archives. It's also a meaningful moment: though Gates grew up in the city's East Garfield Park neighborhood, this is his first solo show in his hometown. "I'm reflecting on what happened these last 20 years, and surveying the materials given to me," he says."

Theaster Gates began as a keeper of old and discarded things, working as an arts administrator at the University of Chicago while purchasing derelict South Side buildings to convert into artists' studios and repositories for books, records, and slides. Over twenty years he amassed many thousands of objects and became a professor of visual art and a Guggenheim Fellow, with exhibitions at major institutions and collaborations with Prada. His exhibition 'Unto Thee' at the Smart Museum unites his work with university archives, including paintings, installations, sculpture, ceramics, films, wooden pews, vitrines from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, and 72,000 glass slides.

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