Theaster Gates Is Best When He's Ambiguous

"Gates is known for using such materials in his paintings as decommissioned firehoses, rubber, tar, and felt, which are linked to the legacies of racial injustice and his own life (his father was a roofer). Instead of exploring a subject through these materials, Gates makes them the subject. Once we make the link, which is spelled out for us in wall labels or previous texts on the artist, there is little else we need to do."

"My second takeaway is that Gates can aestheticize anything - something he shares with Marcel Duchamp - and he is brilliant at it. And yet, there were times I felt dissatisfied as I looked at the two exhibitions at the Smart Museum, his first institutional show in the city where he was born, raised, and has had the greatest social impact."

Theaster Gates dissolves boundaries between artist, collector, archivist, storyteller, ceramicist, and interior decorator. Three concurrent presentations in Chicago—Oh, You've Got to Come Back to the City at Gray Gallery; Unto Thee at the Smart Museum of Art; and the site-specific African Still Life #3—demonstrate a socially engaged practice rooted in material histories. Gates frequently uses decommissioned firehoses, rubber, tar, and felt tied to racial injustice legacies and personal biography, often making materials the primary subject. That strategy can foreground label-linked interpretation and limit further discovery, even as his ability to aestheticize and provoke reflection yields strong social impact.

Read at Hyperallergic