Rapp Lecture in Contemporary Art: Theaster Gates
Wednesday November 20, 2013, 7pm
Doors open at 6pm
Baillie Court, Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas St. West
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
Theaster Gates presents a talk on the last ten years of his art practice through the medium of his glass lantern slide collection. Gates’ collection of 60,000 slides was given to him by the University of Chicago’s art history department. Delving into this body of images, Theaster will lead a discussion on African art forms and notions of primitivism in modern art alongside his own research and making process.
Gates was trained as an urban planner and sculptor, and has developed an expanded artistic practice that includes space development, object making, performance and critical engagement with many publics. Gates transforms spaces, institutions, traditions, and perceptions. Playing with poetics of production and systems of organizing, Gates has assembled gospel choirs, formed temporary unions, and used systems of mass production as a way of underscoring the need that industry has for the body.
Recent exhibition and performance venues include Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; and the Whitney Biennial in New York. Gates was a participating artist in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany, with his 12 Ballads for Huguenot House. Gates was awarded the inaugural Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics, honoured by the Wall Street Journal as Arts Innovator of the Year 2012, and commissioned as the Armory Show Artist 2012. Gates is also a 2012–13 Creative Time Global Resident and is represented by Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago and White Cube in London.
The Rapp Lectures in Contemporary Art are generously supported by Carol & Morton Rapp, Jay Smith & Laura Rapp.
About the Rapp Lecture in Contemporary Art Series:
The Rapp Lecture on Contemporary Art is an annual fixture in the Toronto cultural calendar. The series focuses on critical ideas in contemporary art and culture, and features distinguished international leaders in the contemporary art world, including artists, curators, critics, scholars, and other luminaries.
The program was established in 2009 in honour of Carol and Morton Rapp by their family. The Rapps are leaders who are deeply committed to supporting the contemporary art community. Their legacy as advocates and supporters for contemporary art will live in perpetuity at the AGO.
