Contributors

Theaster Gates* is an artist whose practice finds roots in conceptual formalism, sculpture, space theory, land art, and performance.Trained in urban planning and within the tradition of Japanese ceramics, Gates's artistic philosophy is guided by the concepts of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Animism-most notably honoring the "spirit within things." Foundational to Gates's practice is his custodianship and critical redeployment of culturally significant Black objects, archives, and spaces.Through the expansiveness of his approach as a thinker, maker, and builder, Gates extends the life of disappearing and bygone histories, places, traditions, culturally significant institutions and their progenitors, and loved ones.