![](https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Hong-Kong/2013/Theaster-Gates/Theaster-Gates-Huguenot-Bed-with-Cross-2013-high-res.jpg?w=960&h=720&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1699972336&s=0b6b093ca89307490b7b8bb551572237 960w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Hong-Kong/2013/Theaster-Gates/Theaster-Gates-Huguenot-Bed-with-Cross-2013-high-res.jpg?w=1280&h=960&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1699972336&s=920501d8ec96c6d6086924494cbab557 1280w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Hong-Kong/2013/Theaster-Gates/Theaster-Gates-Huguenot-Bed-with-Cross-2013-high-res.jpg?w=1600&h=1200&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1699972336&s=1c13bfd9cb7f4e67447776c81b04cd10 1600w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Hong-Kong/2013/Theaster-Gates/Theaster-Gates-Huguenot-Bed-with-Cross-2013-high-res.jpg?w=2360&h=1770&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1699972336&s=e04b2c9afa59f7795620d5a5b5712763 2360w)
My Back, My Wheel and My Will
Theaster Gates
My Back, My Wheel and My Will
13 September – 2 November 2013
Dates
13 September – 2 November 2013
White Cube presented two exhibitions by American artist and social activist Theaster Gates that ran concurrently at the White Cube Hong Kong and White Cube São Paulo galleries.
Gates' work, which attempts to catalyse social and economic change through direct artistic agency, bridges the gap between art and life. These exhibitions connected two sites, two cities and two continents through a series of artworks that reflect on the poetics of repurposed and salvaged materials.
The work in both exhibitions, which included installation, sculpture and two-dimensional objects, will bring together artworks and materials gathered from Gates’ earlier project entitled 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, realised for dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany in 2012. This project, which for Gates was a way to ‘conflate a German past with a black present’, involved the occupancy and restoration of an historic house in the centre of Kassel with materials that the artist had, in turn, stripped from a house located at 6901 South Dorchester Avenue, as part of the ongoing renovation of the neighbourhood in the South Side of Chicago where he lives and works. Elements such as the front door of 6901 South Dorchester Avenue as well as much of its 'guts' or interior were shipped to Germany. The result was a startling and poetic cross-fertilisation of materials and ideals, in effect linking the spirit of each building, both of which had been abandoned, albeit for different reasons – one due to war and religious persecution, the other due to urban blight. The two buildings were united through the idea of appropriating space and rescued from dereliction through a connected occupancy.
At the centre of both of these exhibitions were two migration rickshaws, custom-built trolley sculptures which include elements such as wooden blocks covered with wallpaper salvaged from the house, bed rolls and wooden planks. The sculptures were inspired by Gates' recent visit to Port au Prince in Haiti and Guadalajara, Mexico where the popular use of hand-built, rudimentary trolleys, fashioned out of old bits of wood and used car tyres to transport goods and belongings is strikingly noticeable. The trolleys, which function as metaphors of forced migration, also make reference to the Huguenots themselves, who were victims of religious persecution and were expelled from their homes having to bundle up their possessions and move on.
In both the tar pictures and shoe shine sculptures, Gates again references aspects of labour, class division and race. Constructed out of recycled wood, these enlarged, throne-like shoe shine stands appear as both scaffold and monument and make clear and emphatic the role of server and served. Other works continue Gates’ investigation into political themes including new 'strata' pieces, featuring decommissioned fire hoses stacked in rough, wooden box frames. While colourful and abstract, these works remind us of both the ongoing struggle for civil rights in America as well as the specific episode of the hosing of peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. Other elements, such as a chalkboard, globe and chairs recovered from the derelict Crispus Attucks Elementary school in Chicago, reflect visible traces of past histories and act as stand-ins for other stories and communities that have now disappeared.
As curator Michael Darling has noted, Gates is one of the few contemporary artists whose works moves beyond detached commentary and into the realm of action. He writes: ‘Social, cultural, economic, artistic, urbanistic, and perhaps even spiritual, the expansive and difficult-to-define practice Gates has developed over the past several years has found unique form and has come to masterful fruition.’
![](https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Headers/Artist-Pages/Theaster-Gates-Sound-Cube-2019-medium-res.jpg?w=720&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1682413968&s=8e8c0894fafc9874c468c6bbb3f7d9bb 720w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Headers/Artist-Pages/Theaster-Gates-Sound-Cube-2019-medium-res.jpg?w=960&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1682413968&s=dc00ce68bb3fd142d8d7a4bcb279e4b7 960w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Headers/Artist-Pages/Theaster-Gates-Sound-Cube-2019-medium-res.jpg?w=1280&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1682413968&s=256c3ef34c6369f476e1001957b3e3c5 1280w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Headers/Artist-Pages/Theaster-Gates-Sound-Cube-2019-medium-res.jpg?w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1682413968&s=069f8185440a6aed774e621e6346b97d 1600w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Headers/Artist-Pages/Theaster-Gates-Sound-Cube-2019-medium-res.jpg?w=2360&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1682413968&s=12edac4678e05edc4e68757f5f157566 2360w)
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