Over his 30 year career, the multi-disciplinary artist Theaster Gates has explored the relationship of art, architecture, memory, and public life. From now until March 9th, Gates’ work is on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The installation, combining ceramic and wooden objects in an architectonic metal frame, is on display in the Lewis Focus Gallery.
Gates is one of America’s most prolific contemporary artists, and one of its most eclectic. His work includes more familiar fine art media like painting and sculpture, as well as installations and social efforts including a long-running community revitalization project in the South Side of his native Chicago. Gates continues to live and work in Chicago, though he also spent formative years in the 90s working in Tokoname, a small city in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, famous for its ceramic workshops. His engagement with the Japanese ceramic tradition, as well as the larger movement surrounding Japanese folk art known as “mingei,” led Gates to create a body of work he calls “afro-mingei.” His sculptures, merging the artistic and craft cultures of West Africa, Black America, and Japan, were recently exhibited in a solo-show at the Mori Museum of Art in Tokyo.
A portion of this body of work is on display at the VMFA. Some of the ceramic objects on display are vessels, others recall the human body or animal forms. Wooden blocks and crates are scattered through this composition, evoking a workshop or studio scene, rather than a traditional gallery environment. Viewers can circumnavigate this single grouping of sculptures, elevated and framed by a steel prism. The shifting views of the objects within recall how scenes unfold sequentially as one moves through a city, with buildings, trees, and monuments, and open spaces shifting in and out of view.
The exhibit, entitled “Wonder Working Power,” is small, but well worth the time for those interested in the rich intersection of art and architecture. And, like most things at the VMFA, it doesn’t hurt that it’s free and open to the public seven days a week.
Don O’Keefe
Exhibition Info:
Theaster Gates: Wonder Working Power
January 27, 2024 – March 9, 2025
Lewis Focus Gallery
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
200 N. Arthur Ashe Boulevard
Richmond, VA 23220
Link to additional information on the VFMA website.
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