Theaster Gates
Visual artist and urban planner Theaster Gates was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1973. He was raised in Chicago’s East Garfield Park, where he sang in his church choir and helped with his father's roofing business. Gates graduated from Lane Technical College Preparatory High School and went on to receive his B.S. degree in urban planning from Iowa State University in 1996. He later obtained his M.A. degree in fine arts and religious studies from the University of Cape Town in 1998 and his M.S. degree in urban planning, ceramics and religious studies from Iowa State University in 2006.
In 2000, Gates was hired as an arts planner for the Chicago Transit Authority. He then went on to work at the Little Black Pearl Art and Design Center as director of education and outreach. Beginning in 2006, Gates purchased a small number of abandoned homes on Chicago’s South Side in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. He restored the structures using repurposed materials and turned them into alternative cultural spaces, which he collectively called Dorchester Projects. Gates then founded the non-profit Rebuild Foundation to program the spaces.
In 2007, Gates was hired as a coordinator of arts programming for the University of Chicago’s Humanities Division. In 2009, he became an artist in residence and lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts and was appointed as the director of arts program development for the University of Chicago; in 2011, he was named the director of the Arts and Public Life initiative. In 2014, Gates was appointed as a professor in the Department of Visual Arts.
As an artist, Gates is represented by White Cube of London, England. Gates has exhibited his artwork and performed at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Punta della Dogana, Venice; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany; among others.
Gates has received awards and grants from the Knight Foundation, Anderson Ranch, Creative Time, the Wall Street Journal, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, Creative Capital, the Joyce Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Artadia. In 2010, Gates served as a Loeb fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design; in 2012, he became a fellow of United States Artists. In 2013, ArtReview ranked Gates fortieth on its list of the hundred most powerful people in the art world.
Theaster Gates was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on August 4, 2014.
A2014.176
Male
8/4/2014
Gates
Lane Technical College Prep High School
Iowa State University
University of Cape Town
Theaster
Chicago
GAT04
Fall
Illinois
Kyoto, Japan
Right On

Illinois
8/28/1973
Chicago
USA
Sushi
Visual artist and urban planner Theaster Gates (1973 - ) was the director of Arts and Public Life at the University of Chicago and founded the Dorchester Projects and The Rebuild Foundation. He has exhibited his artwork and performed at numerous cultural institutions.
Chicago Transit Authority
Little Black Pearl Art and Design Center
Rebuild Foundation
University of Chicago
Black
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624063">Tape: 1 Slating of Theaster Gates' interview</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624064">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates lists his favorites</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624065">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates describes his father's family background</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624066">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates describes his mother's family background</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624067">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates remembers working on his maternal family's farm</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624068">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates describes his earliest childhood memory</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624069">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates lists his siblings</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624070">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates remembers his household</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624071">Tape: 1 Theaster Gates describes the sights, sounds and smells of his childhood</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624072">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates remembers his church's musical consecration ceremony</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624073">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates remembers the role of religion in his family</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624074">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates talks about his background in gospel music</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624075">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates remembers his influences at Sunday school</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624076">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates remembers his decision to attend a majority-white magnet school</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624077">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates describes his experiences at Frank W. Reilly Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624078">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates talks about the magnet schools in Chicago, Illinois</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624079">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates remembers Lane Technical College Preparatory High School in Chicago, Illinois</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624080">Tape: 2 Theaster Gates remembers his introduction to the house music scene</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624081">Tape: 3 Theaster Gates talks about gender roles in the black church</a>
<a href="https://da.thehistorymakers.org/story/624082">Tape: 3 Theaster Gates remembers his sense of style</a>
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