Theaster Gates at Elevation 1049

A selection of works by Theaster Gates are on view as part of Elevation 1049’s exhibition ‘Energies’ in Gstaad. For the 6th edition of Elevation 1049, the Luma Foundation invited Stefanie Hessler, Director of the Swiss Institute in New York, as guest curator.

At Elevation 1049’s location, ‘The Carpentry’, Gates presents two sets of sculptural groupings, with a selection of studies created during his ‘Le chant du centre’ exhibition at LUMA Arles (June – November 2024), which transformed La Grande Halle into a performative and demonstrative ceramics workshop and activated a newly-built anagama wood-fired kiln in the Camargue as part of Gates’s ongoing engagement with the foundation.

Gates’s work The Duet (2023), a coupling of two 10-foot-high bronze sculptures, is also on view at the outdoor location of Saanen Rübeldorf. Together forming The Duet, Bronze Vessel 1 (Strike) and Bronze Vessel 2 (Double Mooring) honour the legacy of ceramics and mark the first time Gates has created vessels of this size.