Theaster Gates to present a new installation at Mississippi Museum of Art

Theaster Gates will participate in ‘A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration’, an exhibition exploring the profound impact of the Great Northward Migration (1915–70). Featuring 12 artists with ties to the South, the presentation explores themes of self-determination and self-reliance, and chronicles the profound social and cultural impact of this historic act of individual and collective agency on the part of Black Americans.

Gates will contribute a new installation titled The Double Wide (2022), which is built to resemble the double-wide trailer that his uncle owned in Mississippi, where he spent childhood summers with extended family. A candy store by day and juke joint by night, the trailer’s history also forms the basis for a film of Gates’s music ensemble, The Black Monks. Inside the trailer, the artist’s collection of pickled goods and Mississippi reliquaries pays homage to the childhood memories that have shaped him.

‘A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration’ will travel to the Baltimore Museum in autumn 2022.