Theaster Gates: Freedom of Assembly

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by the American artist Theaster Gates.

The show included a number of groups of work on the theme of the first amendment of the US Constitution which protects the freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble and the free exercise of religion. I’m not always sure I could see how some piece fit the theme but there were some interesting works.

I liked the pieces best which had reused material from disused buildings in South Side Chicago such as a wall sculpture made of fork lift truck lifts and panels made from old gym floors with the tape marking left on but now in a different pattern. These felt like then held the echo of the people who had used them before.

I wasn’t so sure about the large tar pictures and the ceramics covered in tar but I did find them rather beautiful and mesmeric. I also liked a group of ceramic figures where one had escaped! My positive mind said escaped but it may be that he’d been rejected.  Who knows!

Review
Evening Standard


 

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