Theaster Gates: Afro-Mingei, White Cube

Theaster Gates is the master of inter-disciplinary art making. He 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.

This May his exhibition Afro-Mingei comes to the White Cube. The title 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 show Plate Convergence – a conceptual exhibition held in Chicago’s Hyde Park Arts Centre – 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 will also incorporate various elements from Japanese and African culture, including crafts, food and music, celebrating cultural hybridity and the layered meanings behind raw materials, their adaptation and re-use. Gates says: ‘amalgamated objects hold so much potential and invite an honesty over the object absolute. I am searching for forms through history, within my imagination, among my peers and from the eternal.’ This promises to be a fascinating a thought-provoking exhibition.