Theaster Gates: True Value (Fondazione Prada, 2016) - September 10th, 2024

“True Value” —the first exhibition by Theaster Gates in Milan— brought together a selection of existing works and new commissions at Fondazione Prada from July 7th to September 25th, 2016. Here, Gates presented his monumental installation of the same name. 

52 pages
16 x 22.5 cm
Softcover, metal stitch binding
ISBN: 2421-2792
Interviews by Elvira Dyangani Ose and Niccolò Gravina.

In 2019, Fondazione Prada presented another exhibition by Gates “The Black Image Corporation” which included the participatory installation “Facsimile Cabinet of Women’s Origin Stories,” first presented at the Kunstmuseum Basel (2018) as part of Gates’s exhibition “Black Madonna”. The installation has also been exhibited at Gropius Bau in Berlin, Spelman College in Atlanta, and Colby College in Waterville. 

“Facsimile Cabinet of Women’s Origin Stories” includes over 3,000 images of Black women, primarily photographed by Moneta Sleet Jr. and Isaac Sutton and made accessible to Gates by Linda Johnson Rice, friend and daughter of John and Eunice Johnson. The installation, which invites viewers to reorganize the framed images, is also part of “Theaster Gates - When Clouds Roll Away: Reflection and Restoration from the Johnson Archive,” opening at Stony Island Arts Bank in partnership with GRAY and the Rebuild Foundation this Thursday, September 12th.

Founded in Chicago in 1942 by John H. Johnson, the Johnson Publishing Company chronicled the lives of Black Americans for over seven decades, most prominently through the monthly magazine Ebony and weekly sister outlet Jet, whose publications were initiated in 1945 and 1951, respectively. For “When Clouds Roll Away,” Gates will activate all three floors of the Stony Island Arts Bank, reimagining the abandoned South Side financial institution as the headquarters for a fictive, contemporary Black publishing company in the spirit of the Johnson Publishing legacy. This architectural-scale installation, will host an active bar and lounge program, music series, and writing commissions reflecting on the archive.