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“In some ways I feel little bit careful and reverent touching these things, but, in another way, it feels like the perfect way to pay homage to the most expansive black publishing company in the world.” —Theaster Gates
Happy birthday to Theaster Gates! Born August 28, 1973, and raised in Chicago, Gates has crossed the Atlantic and set up shop at the Kunstmuseum Basel, where he critically engages with what the museum dryly calls its “Eurocentric collection.” As Gates says in this video from the museum, he was equally inspired by the Black Madonna (a 15th-century Catholic icon in Switzerland) and America’s radical black liberation movement, which had a different but no less impassioned religious tenor. As part of his investigation, he also dove into the voluminous archives of Ebony and Jet magazines, both founded by the legendary black businessman John H. Johnson. At the Kunstmuseum, Gates even set up a printing workshop of his own.
