Theaster Gates

Glass Lantern Slide Pavilion

Reclaimed wood, hose, wire, metal, four ceramic teacups, 245 glass lantern slides, led light.
96 x 84 x 84 inches.

Glass Slide Pavilion is a recent work by Chicago sculptor, performance artist, urban planner, community organizer and cultural entrepreneur, Theaster Gates. Created in 2011, the pavilion provided a centerpiece for Art Basel Miami Beach’s opening night performance, A Sermon on History, and encompasses several of the artist’s most prominent motifs, coiled fire hose, mass produced china, and the theme of art history. The sculpture also offers a strong visual statement of the artist’s current sculptural practice, one which is primarily based on a sense of place and a use of remnants, “humble materials potent with associations” usually saved from “derelict buildings formerly inhabited by black people.”

Glass Slide Pavilion consists of two confronting L-shaped walls made of salvaged lath, clapboard siding, and cut-pile carpet remnants.  A coiled fire hose fits within a niche of the intimate, temple-like space and four mismatched ceramic teacups line a window opening. The effect is minimalist yet “infused with a strong sense of narrative.”  A back-lit ceiling grid comprised of glass lantern slides hovers above and offers a magnificent display of the artist’s genius in using discarded materials for what he terms “highest possible use.”  The glowing squares, a pictorial survey of art history, from the Dying Gaul to Picasso’s Tête de taureau, is born of Gates’ acquisition of approximately 60,000 images from The University of Chicago's Art History Department glass slide collection for reuse as performance material, research and speculation.

Though not a part of “An Epitaph for Civil Rights and Other Domesticated Structures,”Glass Slide Pavilion can easily be seen as a continuation of the ground-breaking work he developed for this acclaimed show held at Kavi Gupta in Chicago, which introduced much of the artist’s latest visual devices that have since become his canon. The fire hoses, he says are a direct reference to the hosing of demonstrators in Birmingham in 1963.  “They are estheticized but nonetheless remain loaded.” Gates adds,  “It disturbs me that we don’t fully remember the challenges to civil rights suffered in this country. We should still be engaged in the protest, in the question of rights. Certain materials make you grapple with those histories and you can use those materials to make modest gestures that are really monumental.”

Exhibited:

Art Basel Miami Beach, December 1-4, 2011 Kavi Gupta, Chicago.