#blackspacematter

[harvardfineartslib]

We begin celebrating the Black History Month with Theaster Gates’ Black Madonna Press.

Theaster Gates’s practices include a wide range of community engagement, land development, sculpture, and performance in the intersection of art and social progress. Gates founded the Rebuild Foundation, a non-profit organization to dedicated to supporting artists and strengthening communities. The foundation’s work is guided by three core values: black people matter, black spaces matter, and black objects matter.

Gates’ Black Madonna Press utilized 13,000 of almost 4 million images from the archives of the Johnson Publishing Company, which published magazines on Black culture and achievement since 1942. Gates incorporated letterpress printing with early images from Ebony and Jet magazines. His project was displayed at the Kunstmuseum Basel Neubau and Gegenwart from June 9, 2018 to October 21, 2018.

You can watch Gates talking about his inspiration for Black Madonna on YouTube.

Theaster Gates : Black Madonna Press : Kunstmuseum Basel Creative direction, Theaster Gates. Gates, Theaster, 1973- [artist]   London; Berlin: The Store X; Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, [2018] 1 volume (unpaged): illustrations (some color); 26 cm English "Published on the occasion of the exhibition Theaster Gates, Black Madonna at Kunstmuseum Basel, June 9, 2018-October 21, 2018"-- Colophon. "In his exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, which will be spread out across two of the museum's venues, Gates will explore the cult of the Black Madonna, examining both its significance in the history of religion and its aesthetic and metaphorical tenor"--The artist's website, viewed May 23, 2019. ISBN : 9780972726603 ISBN : 0972726608 ISBN : 9783720402415 ISBN : 372040241X 2018 HOLLIS number: 99153820286103941