‘It’s Like This Little Time Capsule’: Theaster Gates Explains How His Collecting Obsession Inspires Him in Making New Art

For artist Theaster
Gates, the act of creating artwork doesn’t necessarily start
out with making the object itself. Often, it’s an a matter of
uniting artifacts, repurposing found materials, and then exhibiting
them from a new perspective. Speaking to Art21 in an exclusive interview back in
2017, the artist showed off the troves of historically resonant
objects accumulated in his Chicago-based studio.

“I spend a lot of time looking for the personality of people
within their collections,” he explained.

Some of the things that have fascinated him: the entirety of an
architectural history bookstore in the Downtown area of Chicago;
the inventory of an old record store from Hyde Park; the contents
of a hardware store; and, most recently, the archives
of Jet magazine. In the case
of Jet, Gates spent hours poring over the unbound
periodicals and then binding and color-coding them by decade.

“[Jet] was making work of the present. It wasn’t
attempting to make an archive,” he said. “It’s like this little time
capsule.”

A selection of his collections are on view for the first time in
a museum context at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as part of
“Theaster Gates: Assembly Hall,” spotlighting the value of African
American material culture. Gates’s ultimate goal is to affect his
audience’s contemporary understanding by mining objects from past.
“I feel really fortunate to have been able to make them present in
the world again,” he enthuses.

Watch the full segment, which originally appeared as part of
the “Art in the Twenty-First Century” television
series on PBS, below. “Theaster Gates: Assembly Hall” is on view at the
Walker Art Center through January 12, 2020. 

This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration
between artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking
artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s
flagship Art in the Twenty-First
Century television is available now on PBS. Watch full
episodes and learn about the organization’s education programs
at Art21.org.

The post ‘It’s Like This Little Time Capsule’: Theaster
Gates Explains How His Collecting Obsession Inspires Him in Making
New Art appeared first on artnet News.