Theaster Gates Speculates Darkly
Theaster Gates Jr.
Chicago performance artist and potter Theaster Gates Jr. is going up the road to the Milwaukee Art Museum to create a spectacular installation elaborating on a relationship with Dave Drake, an enslaved African-American potter and poet from antebellum South Carolina. While the whole concept for the exhibit began with a massive Dave Drake pot inscribed with one of the potter’s couplets, it has grown into a critical conversation on the role of craft, labor and race in America.
The artist will transform the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Decorative Arts Gallery into a built environment comprised, among other things, of a glass lantern slide tunnel, ceramic speakers, video, and vessels created by Theaster Gates Jr. “Race, craft and labor are at the center of my work on Dave the Potter,” says the artist. Recently selected to participate in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Gates has earned national acclaim for his intelligent commentaries on race, the city, and the museum. “As the show was starting in Wisconsin, I wanted Dave’s story to engage both craftsmen and the African-American community of Milwaukee.
Storage Jar, Lewis Miles pottery, 1858. Alkaline -glazed stoneware. H. 25 5/8". (Courtesy, Arthur Goldberg; photography, Gavin Ashworth.)
To do this, I worked closely with the Kohler Manufacturing Company and several African-American churches—with Greater New Birth Church being our most amazing collaborator. The ambition of To Speculate Darkly is twofold: to amplify the life and work of Dave the Potter and to ask new questions about the ‘function’ of craft objects in contemporary art practice.”
The artist plans on filling the museum’s atrium with Dave’s words on April 16th, opening night. A two hundred-person choir composed of both local Milwaukeeans and Chicagoans will perform Dave’s couplets as arranged to music by the artist. This exhibition provides an opportunity to not only engage in an important conversation, but also bring diverse groups of people together to share in a common cultural experience.
This is a wonderful opportunity to examine the detailed story of cycles, creativity, and our collective past, present, and future. Great work!
that pot is not by theaster gates it is an antique example of dave drake’s pottery, that error should be corrected and give dave drake the appropriate credit for his own work as an enslaved african american artist poet and potter all exemplified in the piece shown. also i believe the piece is on loan from a private collection.
otherwise i think the subject and theaster gates’ use of dave’s work as a catalyst to reengage in a visceral dialogue between communities is an innovative and dynamic way of breaking down barriers giving voice to hard truths and exposing the raw nerves that makes history relevant now. so i hope it catches on!
best,
michelle