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The art of staying: Theaster Gates and the Rebuild Foundation

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The art of staying: Theaster Gates and the Rebuild Foundation

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THE ART OF STAYING:
THEASTER GATES AND THE REBUILD FOUNDATION

Paulina Samborska

________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ART AND CURATORIAL PRACTICES IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

May 2016

Copyright 2016 Paulina Samborska

2
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Gates and the Rebuild Foundation in Greater Grand Crossing 14

Artistic Predecessors 26

Conclusion 38

Appendix with Figures 44

Bibliography 50

3

INTRODUCTION

We have an opportunity to either live wherever we want somewhere else, or make
an amazingly fresh, robust community here.
1

-Theaster Gates, 2012

The above quote by Theaster Gates is transcribed from a video in which the artist/urban
planner is talking with guests at one of his communal dinner parties at the Archive House in
Chicago, Illinois in 2012. In the scene, we find a warmly lit room with long tables seating
approximately two dozen people, listening attentively to Gates over an appetizing meal. While
Gates’s statement is seemingly straightforward and proposes a simple act — that of living and
working in one place — its effects are profound and complex. What can happen when artists join
with neighbors to strengthen their communities rather than move in and out from one area to the
next? Furthermore, how can we make use of existing structures and turn our individual interests
into positive, collective acts? Gates describes this concept as “the art of staying” – building up
your own community by working to improve the conditions of your block for yourself and your
neighbors.
2
It is a philosophy that the artist has put into practice through his ambitious, long-term
neighborhood revitalization projects.
The Archive House is part of a constellation of structures that Gates has rehabilitated for
arts and cultural programming in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood of Chicago. Gates

1
University of Chicago, “Theaster Gates: Dorchester Projects,” University of Chicago YouTube video, 2:54, March
27, 2012, accessed November 27, 2015, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kxfcDFlvYk.
2
Theaster Gates, “Theaster Gates: A Way of Working” (conference at the Vera List Center for Arts
and Politics, The New School, New York, September 18, 2013), accessed December 5, 2015,
http://www.veralistcenter.org/engage/event/1885/theaster-gates-a-way-of-working.

4
began living and working in this area in 2005, and by 2009 he acquired and renovated three
spaces — Archive House, Listening House and Black Cinema House –– that are collectively
referred to as the Dorchester Projects.
3
The title of the project is derived from 6900 S. Dorchester
Avenue, the block in which the buildings were all originally situated.
4
All of the projects have
expanded throughout the years, and continue to grow and change.
Today, these sites along with the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative and the Stony
Island Arts Bank, are all operated by the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit organization started by
Gates in 2010 to maintain and develop his projects. With Gates serving as the Artistic Director,
the foundation is comprised of a mix of, “artists, architects, developers, educators, community
activists, and residents who work together to integrate the arts, apprenticeship trade training and
creative entrepreneurship into a community-driven process of neighborhood transformation.”
5

The organization has a permanent staff of over twenty individuals, as well as a board of directors
and advisory committee. This is important to note when considering the degree to which Gates’s
endeavors have expanded in the past decade. By employing and partnering with individuals who
have expertise and experience in distinct areas, the organization can pursue large projects,
simultaneously operate multiple sites, and maximize their potential. Their nonprofit status also
allows them to apply for municipal and federal housing grants that Gates would not be qualified
to receive as an individual artist.
6

3
Theaster Gates, “Dorchester Projects,” Theaster Gates, accessed January 15, 2016, http://theastergates.com/section
/117693_Dorchester_Projects.html.
4
Rebuild Foundation, “Black Cinema House,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed December 1, 2015, https://rebuild-
foundation.org/site/black-cinema-house. Black Cinema House moved to moved to a larger space in Greater Grand
Crossing in 2014, and is now located at 7200 S. Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, IL 60619.
5
Rebuild Foundation, “Our Story,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed December 1, 2015, https://rebuild-
foundation.org/about/our-story.
6
Kathleen Reinhardt, “Theaster Gates’s Dorchester Projects in Chicago,” Journal of Urban History 41 (2015): 198.

5
The five sites that Rebuild Foundation manages in Greater Grand Crossing have different
uses, but all function as creative cultural centers in an otherwise underserved neighborhood.
Gates, who was born on the West Side of Chicago in 1973, understands the value and imperative
for caring for your community, as he witnessed firsthand the problematic housing policies in his
city. The artist constantly saw decaying buildings get torn down in his neighborhood, with
nothing positive to replace the rubble.
7
These spaces, however, were in poor condition as a result
of racist redlining and a history of disinvestment.
8
Rather than strategize solutions for reviving
these places, the city chose to eradicate them, pointing to their long-standing discriminatory
policies.
The practice of racial redlining – denying or restricting financial services to a
creditworthy individual because of their race – began in 1934 with the creation of the Federal
Housing Administration and spread throughout the mortgage industry. The FHA determined
which areas of a city were desirable for loan guarantees, rating these zones from A to D, with
"A" being the best and "D" the worst. Neighborhoods where black people lived were mostly
ranked as "D" and colored in red on the FHA's map system, regardless of the residents' income.
Therefore, black people who wanted to purchase homes were not eligible for FHA-secured loans
and were forced into buying property through predatory contractors. These contractors would
purchase houses for cheap, sell them to black buyers for sometimes twice the original price, and
keep the deed until the amount was paid in full. People who purchased homes on contract did not

7
Theaster Gates, “Place Project spreads artistic model of resident engagement to new communities,” Knight Blog,
May 8, 2014, accessed November 27, 2015, http://knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2014/5/8/place-project-
spreads-artistic-model-resident-engagement-new-communities.
8
Nina Feldman, “The Complicated Business of Placemaking in a Place That Already Exists,” Forefront, September
21, 2015, 4, ProQuest (1713937770).

6
acquire equity as one would through a traditional mortgage and were at risk for losing their
property if they missed a single payment.
9

Redlining was legally banned three decades later with the Fair Housing Act, also known
as title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
10
However, that did not mean that each politician
and civic leader suddenly changed his or her ideology or that the effects of this practice could be
reversed. Chicago, in particular, became explicitly segregated as a result of federal redlining and
other planning strategies created by the city council – for instance, between 1950 and the mid -
1960s more than 98 percent of family public housing properties were built in predominantly
black neighborhoods.
11
This history, and it's reverberating consequences, greatly affected Gates
and shaped his thinking on urban planning and community engagement. As the artist writes:
...I became very invested in the idea that people from neighborhoods like the one where I
grew up on the West Side should have some responsibility for those places—because
maybe nobody else would. In that sense, the start of my work in creative place-making
had everything to do with nostalgia and a sense of duty toward the neighborhood where I
grew up.
12

Gates reveals a great deal about himself in the above quote, particularly his motivations
in carrying out his work. His statement brings to mind the now well-known slogan “the personal
is political,” as we see how his individual experiences are tied to larger structures of power.
By saying that he feels “nostalgia and a sense of duty” to his hometown, we learn of his
individual attachment to his projects. We are also told that there is a social obligation to do this
work, as there may not be outside interest in this community. Occupying the position of an
insider/outsider — Gates grew up in an underserved Chicago neighborhood, but continued to

9
Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations," The Atlantic, June 2014, accessed March 15, 2016.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631.
10
Federal Reserve Board, "Fair Lending Regulations and Statutes: Fair Housing Act," in Consumer Compliance
Handbook, accessed March 15, 2016, http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/supmanual/cch/fair_lend_fhact.pdf
11
Coates, "The Case for Reparations."
12
Gates, “Place Project spreads artistic model of resident engagement to new communities.”

7
study and later work in an elite educational institution, thereby acquiring cultural capital and
raising his class status — he is interested in finding a way to leverage his resources and build
from within. Rather than rely on others to create the change he wants to see in a neighborhood —
which I would describe as a desire for new forms of art and cultural activity and social
engagement — Gates wants to be the catalyst.
As a self-defined “social practice installation artist” Gates appears equally interested in
aesthetics and human relations.
13
The buildings that he rehabilitates are skillfully crafted and can
be appreciated for this aesthetic value as installation works alongside their functions as social
spaces. Gates acknowledges the unique position he occupies, admitting his limitations and
strengths by stating:
There are people who are much more politically active, culturally active, socially active,
than myself. I don't call myself those things but I do understand what it means to be an
active citizen, a human involved in the stakes of his or her country, a neighbor who cares
about the affairs of their block. And I happen to bring the fact that I'm an artist to all of
those things.
14

Gates takes a humanist stance, emphasizing that he is foremost a citizen and neighbor.
Furthermore, he does not deny his privilege as a prominent artist whose work is exhibited
internationally at galleries, museums, biennials, and art fairs. His sculptures and paintings are
tremendously valuable — the artist’s auction record high is currently $375,270 — and are
sought-after by collectors.
15
Gates embraces his status and connections to garner support for his
projects, and funds them through a mixed financial model that includes both philanthropic grants
and commercial sales. Curator Hesse McGraw writes about the artist’s openness to the market

13
Gareth Harris, “Theaster Gates: Artist or Activist?” The Financial Times Limited, May 22, 2015, 2, ProQuest
(1690163517).
14
Ibid.
15
Gates’s 2011 work For Race Riots and Salon Gatherings (6) sold for $375,270 (including auction fee to buyer) at
Christie’s London, King Street on February 11, 2015. Auction results are available through the website AskArt.com
with a subscription.

8
stating, “His efforts to reanimate abandoned properties for new cultural uses came first, the sale
of objects follows. Their relationship is now fully cyclical and celebrated.”
16
The relationship
may be cyclical, but I would argue that it is not fully celebrated. While Gates’s practice is widely
praised, as evidenced through the increasing number of exhibitions and awards the artist has
received throughout his career, there remains criticism about the social efficacy of his practice
and the entrepreneurial strategies he employs to start and run his projects.
17
As Gates is engaged
in the sale of artwork through the traditional channel of artist/dealer/collector and works with
NGOs and developers, he is undeniably implicated in the business realm.
In the 2013 eflux essay, “Mimesis of the Hardened and Alienated: Social Practice as
Business Mode,” Marina Vishmidt asserts that Gates’s work is too closely aligned with
capitalism and does not have an antagonistic relationship to this system. She states that in Gates's
practice the structural inequalities of, "housing privatization, unemployment, and racialized
domination turn into resources for a cultural project that exposes them to the light, only to push
them into the background," as his projects are partially bankrolled by the entities that contribute
to these problems.
18
She describes his approach and message as “donor-friendly,” indicating that
he is not critical of where the money for his projects comes from.
19
Furthermore, she is skeptical

16
Hesse McGraw, “Theaster Gates: Radical Reform with Everyday Tools,” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, and
Enquiry 30 (2012): 89.
17
Theaster Gates’s international profile has raised significantly since the beginnings of his artistic career in 2005.
He has received eight highly-esteemed art prizes since 2009, including the Artes Mundi in 2015 and the Creative
Capital Grant in 2012. In 2012, Gates began working with London gallery White Cube. He has had solo exhibitions
at large institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2009, the Milwaukee Art Museum in
2010, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2011. In 2014, he received an honorary doctorate at
the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. In 2015, he participated in the 56th Venice Biennial. For a full chronology
through 2015 see, “Chronology,” in Theaster Gates, 152-156.
18
Marina Vishmidt, “Mimesis of the Hardened and Alienated: Social Practice as Business Mode,” e-flux 43 (2013):
9.
19
Ibid., 8.

9
that Gates's work is safe-guarded from critique by hiding behind the language and parameters of
"autonomous art."
20

Critic Andy Horowitz raises his own concerns about Gates's practice, particularly the
social impact of his projects. Similar to Vishmidt, he questions whether an expanded practice
such as Gates's should be limited to an aesthetic analysis or whether we can begin to evaluate his
work through the methodologies of the different disciplines with which he is engaging. Horowitz
poignantly asks:
If one element of Gates’ project is social impact, are there numbers that substantiate that
impact? Do the residents of Dorchester Projects have an equity stake in the outcome of
Gates’ work? Has he created jobs, lowered crime, reinforced social fabric and increased
the quality of life or standard of living?
21

Both authors raise important points, complicating the idea that socially engaged artworks such as
Gates are inherently good and, subsequently, beyond critique. Gates and Rebuild's projects
should be debated in a broader framework beyond the art realm. The artist was, in fact, named
The Wall Street Journal "Innovator of the Year" in 2012, pointing to his extended influence
outside art circles.
A recent partnership between the University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life's Place Lab
(of which Gates is the Director) and the Harris School of Public Policy, was recently launched
with the mission to further connect Gates's work with urban planning practitioners, policy
makers, and community organizers. The enterprise, which merges Harris' Cultural Policy Center
under the Place Lab name, will examine the projects Gates has implemented and bring artists,
policymakers, faculty, and students together to strategize new approaches to urban development

20
Ibid., 9.
21
Andy Horowitz, "Complicating Theaster Gates," Culturebot, September 23, 2013, accessed March 15, 2016,
http://www.culturebot.org/2013/09/19077/complicating-theaster-gates/

10
in which art and culture play a considerable role. The partnership is quite new — it was officially
announced on February 1, 2016 — but the prospects are promising. The Cultural Policy Center
will conduct research on existing and future projects and Place Lab will host public convenings
on urban planning policies and provide leadership development for those interested
professionally in the field.
22
Although the extent of this endeavor is yet to be determined, it
signals that there is great interest in the social impact of these projects.
Furthermore, I would argue that although Gates is working within the dominant
economic model and partnering with private and public parties to develop his projects, he fully
understands the necessity of using the resources available to him to pursue his goals. His
cooperation with institutions and embrace of the art market is not out of naivety or greed, but a
strategy employed to serve an end. As Kathleen Reinhardt points out:
But maybe Gates’s engagement is more realistic in terms of an active and
profitable incorporation of possibilities, not letting opportunities that the art market
creates pass him by. Through its multilayered processes, Gates considers the real world
that these projects have to subordinate themselves to and forgoes their marginalization as
social projects by rendering them aesthetic ones. The subversive gesture is that he is not
ignoring the market value of his object-based art works and pretending the building
projects in Chicago are purely socially motivated (isolating his object-based
practice), but he actively incorporates the processes of money-making through the art
industry into the value chain that is established by him.
23

By redirecting these channels of wealth, he is opening up opportunities in places that were
traditionally ignored or undervalued by both the art institution and local governing body.
Therefore, while we should consider any problematic tensions, we need to also explore the
possibilities that arise through the work rather than completely dismiss the act. In an art world

22
University of Chicago, "Theaster Gates to lead new cultural policy partnership at Chicago Harris,"
UChicagoNews, February 1, 2016, accessed March 1, 2016, https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/02/01/
theaster-gates-lead-new-cultural-policy-partnership-chicago-harris.
23
Reinhardt, “Theaster Gates’s Dorchester Projects in Chicago,” 200.

11
that is partly (many, including myself, would argue largely) dominated by finance and fame, his
practice is an interesting case in which those aspects are ever-present but reconstituted.
With this in mind, I would like to examine the work of Gates and the Rebuild Foundation
in relation to political philosopher Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic politics. I will discuss
how the strategies of Gates align with Mouffe’s writing, in that they create new forms of
expression and representation. Although Gates does not have an antagonistic relationship to
institutions of power, he does challenge their structures by producing alternatives within the
system. While the concepts behind creative place-making and urban revitalization are grand,
Gates’s work serves as a model of how an artist can intervene and begin to address this
complexity. By working in his own hometown on projects with long-term goals, Gates
demonstrates how artists can have an impact on a community while making use of their material
and cultural capital.
Antagonism and agonism are related for Mouffe, but in the former conflict is defined as a
struggle between “enemies” and in the latter it is a struggle between “adversaries.” While
adversaries defend their positions, they do not question the legitimacy of their opponent’s right
to fight as enemies do.
24
In embracing these notions of continual conflict and pluralism, Mouffe
acknowledges the impossibility of a final reconciliation between all people.
25
Conflict and
struggle can, however, lead to a subversion of the dominant hegemony and create new
subjectivities within the current system. Gates's projects do not attempt to completely break from
society, or pin one party against another in an attempt to overthrow the establishment. Instead,
they highlight the need for multiple cultural institutions in the city to better serve the public.

24
Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013), 7.
25
Mouffe, Agonistics, 15.

12
When discussing a "public" I do not propose a singular, unified body and want to emphasize that
there is diversity within the group. I believe that Gates's projects are not homogenizing, but
acknowledge that spaces for black cultural exchange should exist in a city with a significant
black population. As critic Huey Copeland points out:
These spaces [Dorchester Projects] in turn resonate with previous models of African
American institutionality in Chicago, from the collectors' association Diasporal Rhythms
to the South Side Community Art Center. As the historically attuned artist [Gates] knows
well, such institutions exist in spite of and in opposition to hegemonic models that would
deny their necessity or promise to 'integrate' their constituents.
26

Rather than rely on established organizations, Gates and the Rebuild Foundation are creating
their own institution.
As art plays a crucial role in culture and the establishment of hegemonic orders, it can
contribute to the construction of new subjectivities.
27
Gates’s adaptive reuse projects turn once
decaying structures into sites for culture and community gathering, carving out space for
residents of Greater Grand Crossing in their own neighborhood. Mouffe explains that in the
agonistic approach, “[Art’s] critical dimension consists in making visible what the dominant
consensus tends to obscure and obliterate, in giving a voice to all those who are silenced within
the framework of the existing hegemony.”
28
Gates’s projects do not seek to create a consensus,
and actually highlight the disparities between the city’s wealthy and poor neighborhoods. One
question that the artist states he is constantly asking is, “who has the right to amazing culture?”
29

His work creates opportunities for art and cultural activity in spaces outside of the well-
established zones — such the downtown section of the Magnificent Mile where the city’s major

26
Huey Copeland, "Dark Mirrors: Huey Copeland on Theaster Gates and Ebony," Artforum, October 2013, 227-28.
27
Chantal Mouffe, “Art as Agonistic Intervention in Public Space,” Open 14 (2008): 13.
28
Mouffe, Agonistics, 93.
29
AJ LaTrace, “Inside Theaster Gates' New Stony Island Arts Bank, Opening October 3,” Chicago Curbed,
September 18, 2015, accessed December 1, 2015, http://chicago.curbed.com/2015/9/18/9920052/stony-island-arts-
bank-tour.

13
museums are located, or the West Loop neighborhood that is considered Chicago’s
contemporary art gallery district.
To further understand Gates’s practice, it is also necessary to consider the larger art
historical context for his work, specifically the realm of public art. Artist Suzanne Lacy’s 1994
book, Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art is key for understanding how the field of
public art developed from an object-based practice to include socially engaged and politically
oriented projects. While her publication predates Gates’s work, it provides a firm foundation for
analyzing the subject. The writings of Tom Finkelpearl, Grant H. Kester, Miwon Kwon, and
Nato Thompson are also critical in this conversation, as each have explored extensively
collaborative and participatory art practices and publicly sited artworks. They offer innovative
insight into the area, examining the history and theoretical debates behind these projects.

14
GATES AND THE REBUILD FOUNDATION IN GREATER GRAND CROSSING

Rebuild Foundation has expanded significantly since its inception in 2010, and has
received support and interest from the art sector and beyond. In addition to the program sites in
Chicago, they have initiated projects in smaller, less-populated cities across the United States,
such as Omaha, St. Louis, and Detroit.
30
While this is worth noting, the focus of this thesis is on
the sites in Greater Grand Crossing because that is where the artist’s work in community
revitalization originates and the neighborhood in which he is fully embedded. It is also the home
of the Rebuild headquarters, and where the organization has done their most substantial work
and continues to expand. In January 2016 alone, the organization promoted 83 events on their
website that were free and open to the public. These included: "Family Band," an all-ages event
for inspiring musicians to learn and play together; "Reimaging the Dorchester Community
Garden," a meeting to discuss the renovation of the garden at the Dorchester Art + Housing
Collaborative; as well as a number of other programs such as writing workshops, yoga classes,
readings, discussion groups, and film screenings.
31

Although Gates and Rebuild do not claim to deliver a perfect solution to undo a complex
history of planning, their endeavors can be looked at as creative, artist-led suggestions of how to
rethink a place.
32
Gates states that he cannot simply reproduce Dorchester in a new place, but the
ideas behind the project can be applied to other socially engaged works or planning strategies in
urban areas. For the artist, some of the key questions to ask when working in a new community

30
Leveraging Investments in Creativity, “Rebuild Foundation,” Leveraging Investments in Creativity, accessed
January 5, 2016, http://www.lincnet.net/1775.
31
Rebuild Foundation, "Events," Rebuild Foundation, accessed March 1, 2016, https://rebuild-
foundation.org/events/?event_month=01.
32
Reinhardt, “Theaster Gates’s Dorchester Projects in Chicago,” 195.

15
are, as he states, “‘What’s around me? Who’s doing what? Who are the people that I know?
What are the skills sets?’”
33
His inquiry relates to other projects that are considered “issue-
specific” or “audience-specific” in that they are distinctly developed for particular locations and
communities.
34
This process is necessary for producing projects that will be meaningful to
different publics.
Gates moved to Greater Grand Crossing in 2006 after accepting a position at the
University of Chicago. He was searching for an affordable home near the university and bought a
property that was a former candy store for $130,000.
35
Although the building was less than a ten-
minute drive to Hyde Park, the neighborhood in which the elite university is set, it was priced
very reasonably by Chicago standards. The wealth surrounding the University of Chicago did not
trickle down to Greater Grand Crossing, and the area was abundant with abandoned or decaying
spaces. Gates understood the reality of the situation and wondered whether he had any agency as
an artist and cultural producer to spark change. Writing about this situation, he explained:
I live and work in Grand Crossing, a black neighborhood eight miles south of downtown
Chicago. When the Great Migration transformed the population from majority Irish and
German to 90 percent black, the area was left to rot. Someone somewhere decided that
these streets were ruins, and I wondered whether I had the power to restore them.

Art exists to make sense out of nonsense. I couldn’t believe that there were blocks of
beautiful homes that had been abandoned. I refused to accept that so many men and women
were out of work. I planted myself in this community.
36

Gates’s parents, Theaster Sr. and Lorine Allen relocated from Yazoo City, Mississippi to
Chicago in 1955 during the Great Migration in search of new opportunities and protection

33
Carol Becker, “Carol Becker in Conversation with Theaster Gates,” in Theaster Gates (New York: Phaidon,
2015), 8.
34
Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004),
109.
35
McGraw, “Theaster Gates: Radical Reform with Everyday Tools,” 91.
36
Theaster Gates, “Statement,” in Theaster Gates: 12 Ballads for Huguenot House (Köln: Walther König, 2012),
12.

16
against Jim Crow segregation.
37
Although Gates was born nearly two decades after his parents’
move, he understood the impact of the migration on cities and planning policies. He witnessed
the impact of discriminatory housing policies in Chicago, as previously discussed, and
encountered racist theories while studying urban planning at Iowa State University in the mid
1990s. Gates writes of his experiences at ISU, stating:
I was studying it [urban planning] in a rural place [Iowa State University] that had lots of
ideas of a city that were in conflict with how I saw my city [Chicago] and 'the city.' Some
of the faculty members were ultra conservative and, at times, taught planning theories that
were racist and biased against black people.
38

This influenced his perspectives on city and community development, as he saw distinguishable
differences between how he and some of his teachers viewed urban issues. Nevertheless, he did
gain a fundamental understanding of the profession, such as how planned developments happen
and what city processes entail. It was also at this time that he acquired an interest in sculpture,
and the two spheres of city planning and art began to commingle.

Prior to his position at the
University of Chicago and his projects in Greater Grand Crossing, he worked for the Chicago
Transit Department to develop their public art policies.
39

Gates brings his knowledge and training of both fields to each of his rehabilitation
projects. He slowly renovated his first building, which was later titled the Listening House, with
a combination of new and salvaged materials to create mixed-use space for art and community
programming (Figure 1). He used an eclectic mix of wood for panels, shelves, and stools,
including boards from the nearby Wrigley chewing gum factory, which holds particular local
significance. The space evolved to include a ceramics studio, design lab, practice space, and

37
Lisa Yun Lee, “Everything and the Burden is Beautiful,” in Theaster Gates (New York: Phaidon, 2015), 47.
38
David Hartt, “The Dorchester Project: An Interview with Theaster Gates,” Chicago Art Journal 20 (2010): 78.
39
Ibid.

17
communal kitchen for the artist and guests to use.
40
Gates no longer lives in the Listening House,
but it continues to host artists, performers, and other visitors for various periods of time. While
speaking with Kate Hadley Toftness, Rebuild Foundation’s Archival Collections and Public
Engagement Manager, I learned that there isn't any official application process to become a
resident at the Dorchester Projects, but they do have individuals stay and work in the spaces.
41

The informality of the structure allows for flexibility — through the years there have been many
people who have inhabited the sites and organized exhibitions, led workshops, performances,
dinners, and various events on different scales. This has operated partly by word of mouth, as
people network and introduce one another to Gates and the project.
There are more formal programs however, as evidenced in the current Méthode Room
residency that began in August 2015. The residency was conceived and organized by an outside
curator, Guillaume Désanges, with support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy
and the Institut Français, to bring three residents to Dorchester and produce a project or
exhibition for this specific site.
42
The first participant, architect Xavier Wrona, developed an
architecture television show during his residency called After the Revolution. The program was
recorded five days a week and invited neighbors, artists, and civic leaders to share their thoughts
on architecture and politics. The project took place during the Chicago Architecture Biennial,
drawing a diverse audience to the site.
43

40
McGraw, “Theaster Gates: Radical Reform with Everyday Tools,” 92.
41
Kate Hadley Toftness, conversation with the author, December 30, 2015.
42
Laurence Geannopulos, “Méthode Room International Curatorial Residency Launches on the South Side of
Chicago,” Cultural Services of the French Embassy, August 11, 2015, accessed January 5, 2016,
http://frenchculture.org/visual-and-performing-arts/news/methode-room-international-curatorial-residency-launches-
south-side.
43
Chicago Architecture Biennial, “Xavier Wrona: After the Revolution Artist Talk,” Chicago Architecture Biennial,
accessed January 15, 2016, http://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/public-program/calendar/xavier-wrona-after-the-
revolution-artist-talk.

18
It is interesting to compare the different types of participants, audiences, and supporters
that Dorchester Projects has attracted over the past 10 years. While there are now more programs
that we would expect to find in a traditional art space, it continues to be accommodating. This
flexibility comes from the freedom in thinking of the site as an artist-led project with an
organizational backing, rather than vice-versa. In my conversation with Hadley Toftness, she
offered an anecdote that sheds light on the situation. She explained that a longtime supporter of
Gates shared her concern that with the expansion of Rebuild Foundation into several sites, they
would no longer serve the original community of Dorchester Avenue. It was the holiday season
when their exchange occurred, and the individual wondered whether they would be doing their
annual gingerbread house workshop. While the gathering was not published on the Rebuild
Foundation website, they were indeed hosting the event.
44
This example spoke to the different
positions that the organization must occupy, as they continue to grow and reach international
audiences with programs such as the Méthode Room but remain a resource for the neighborhood
in which they are situated. It appears that they want to still provide more intimate events for
locals that are not publicized at large and are working to strike a balance between these two
spheres, which often, but not always, overlap.
During the height of the real estate crisis in 2009, Gates had the opportunity to buy the
property adjacent to the Listening House for a mere $16,000. This second building was originally
conceived as a “soul-food pavilion” that would merge food and performance, but after the
University of Chicago’s Department of Art History offered Gates a collection of 80,000 glass
slides of the art historical canon, he reimagined the space as a center for collections and research

44
Hadley Toftness, conversation with the author, December 30, 2015.

19
and it became known as the Archive House (Figure 2).
45
This allowed him to expand his reach in
the neighborhood by bringing a unique grouping of archival material to the block. In keeping
these collections on the South Side, but moving them from an exclusive university to a
community arts space, he hoped to prompt questions about who has access to specific bodies of
knowledge.
46
It is also from this moment that the two buildings began to be referred to as
Dorchester Projects.
47
This marks a critical shift in how we interpret the spaces — while we
know that one began as Gates’s home, by 2009 we understand his investment in the
neighborhood and the transformation of these sites into local cultural hubs.
For the Listening House, Gates bought 8,000 vinyl records from a shuttered Hyde Park
record store called Dr. Wax. The shop was beloved by many Chicagoans because it stocked
music by local artists, but after twenty years in operation it unfortunately went out of business.
48

Gates additionally purchased 14,000 books on the topics of art and architecture from the Prairie
Avenue Bookshop — another local business that had recently closed — which are split between
the two buildings.
49
Visitors are encouraged to engage with these resources, and the artists in
residence often use the collections in their projects. Gates’s selection of materials for the
Dorchester Projects, which focus on creative subjects such as music, art, and architecture, is
telling of his objectives as a cultural producer. The artist gestures that these resources should be
available to diverse audiences and not reserved strictly for high institutions. Gates reactivates and

45
McGraw, “Theaster Gates: Radical Reform with Everyday Tools,” 92.
46
Rebuild Foundation, “Dorchester Projects,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed November 27, 2015, https://rebuild-
foundation.squarespace.com/dorchester-projects.
47
Theaster Gates, “Dorchester Projects,” Theaster Gates.
48
Ben Sigrist, “Swan song: Dr Wax closes its doors,” The Chicago Maroon, February 9, 2010, accessed January 5,
2016, http://chicagomaroon.com/2010/02/09/swan-song-dr-wax-closes-its-doors.
49
McGraw, “Theaster Gates: Radical Reform with Everyday Tools,” 92.

20
repurposes these abandoned collections much like the structures that now function as their
keepers.
The interiors and exteriors of both houses are highly aestheticized, as they are crafted
with great detail and consideration. All of the elements work in harmony — from the furniture
and fixtures to the collection materials — resulting in a type of gesamtkunstwerk and immersive
installation. The warm tones and worn materials are welcoming, as opposed to stark white walls
and concrete floors which are typical of many art spaces. Even if a visitor does not know the
exact origin of each panel or chair for instance, there is a sense of history invoked through the
recycled, weathered matter. The facade of the buildings is visually interesting yet modest with
the goal that a passerby on the street would be intrigued to learn more. As Gates writes, “My
hope is that they [a passerby] would be as invited and as interested and invested — that the
architecture is never exclusionary, and people wouldn’t automatically look at it and think, ‘Oh, I
could never live there.’”
50
By rehabilitating the existing structures, the spaces at once fit in and
stand apart from the surrounding environment, making them feel relatively familiar yet
distinctive.
Black Cinema House, originally located on Dorchester Avenue, moved in 2014 to a new
building that is about half a mile from the Listening and Archive Houses (Figure 3). The
structure was formerly a distribution facility for brewing company Anheuser-Busch, therefore
the space is quite large and can accommodate bigger audiences than the previous location. As
with the other sites discussed, Black Cinema House has been beautifully rehabilitated and
repurposed for cultural programming. The space hosts screenings and discussions of films by and

50
Jacqueline Stewart, “Embedded: Theaster Gates Interviewed by Jacqueline Stewart,” in Immersive Life Practices,
ed. Daniel Tucker (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014), 153.

21
about people of the African diaspora and offers video courses for both the youth and adults.
51
By
showcasing and celebrating black films, they offer an alternative to the traditional Hollywood
narrative. All of the programs are free and open to the public, such as the recent Self + Otherness
workshop that teaches participants about the production, theory, and history of moving image-
based work.
52
While Rebuild has an ongoing schedule of events, the basic components of the
project — a room and a screen — are relatively accessible for most and scalable to any size.
Gates hopes that people who come into the space will be inspired to host their own screenings
and other neighborhood gatherings.
53
The excitement lies in the notion that these films can be
disseminated more widely and that the skills taught in the courses will be useful beyond the
workshop.
Of Rebuild Foundation’s current projects, the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative
(DA + HC) is the most distinctive in that the site operates as both an art center and residence
(Figure 4). DA + HC is a block of 32 townhouses that Rebuild renovated in collaboration with
the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), Brinshore Development, and Landon Bone Baker
Architects (LBBA), which opened to the public in November 2014.
54
LBBA is well-regarded in
Chicago for their democratic principles to bring innovative architecture and design to all
regardless of income.
55
They understand the problematic history of Chicago's housing projects

51
Rebuild Foundation, “Black Cinema House,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed December 1, 2015, https://rebuild-
foundation.org/site/black-cinema-house.
52
Rebuild Foundation. “Events,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed January 15, 2015, https://rebuild-
foundation.org/event/self-otherness-film-workshop-4.
53
Feldman, “The Complicated Business of Placemaking in a Place That Already Exists,” 3.
54
AJ LaTrace, “Theaster Gates’s New Artist Housing Development Now Open,” Curbed Chicago, November 21,
2014, accessed November 27, 2015, http://chicago.curbed.com/archives/2014/11/21/theaster-gates-new-artshousing-
development-now-open.php.
55
Krisann Rehbein, "The People's Architect: Landon Bone Baker's AIA Honor Recognizes the Importance of
Building for the Less Fortunate," Newcity Design, November 10, 2014, accessed March 1, 2016,
http://design.newcity.com/2014/11/10/the-peoples-architect-landon-bone-bakers-aia-honor-recognizes-the-
importance-of-building-for-the-less-fortunate.

22
and have worked on a number of CHA developments. The property they designed has artist, low
income, and market rate units, allowing for a diverse group of tenants to live at DA + HC.
Alongside the affordable homes, the property features an art center that is managed by Rebuild
as well as a communal meeting space and garden.
One of the programs that convenes weekly at DA + HC is “Coffee, Tea, and Chat,” a
gathering of residents from the Greater Grand Crossing area that discuss strategies for
neighborhood improvement.
56
In this project we see the extent into which artists can intervene in
the public sphere. With the DA + HC, Gates moved far beyond the limitations of the art
institution and collaborated with professionals in the housing sector to develop a project that has
significance for a wide demographic. As areas with arts and culture activity become desirable
targets for gentrification, this initiative shows that Rebuild Foundation is taking measures to
secure space for working-class populations.
The most recent project by Gates and Rebuild is the Stony Island Arts Bank that opened
to the public in October 2015 (Figure 5). The building was erected in 1923 and functioned as a
savings and loan bank in the community until the 1980s when the branch closed and the space
was vacated.
57
The structure was left in a deteriorated state and was going to be torn down until
Rebuild took over the building in 2012 and began a long process of fundraising and renovation.
58

Gates spoke with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel days before the demolition and persuaded him
to sell the building to his organization for $1 with a single but major provision — Gates and
Rebuild would need to secure $3.7 million for the building’s renovation. One fraction of the

56
Rebuild Foundation, “Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed December 1, 2015,
http://rebuild-foundation.squarespace.com/dorchester-art-housing-collaborative.
57
Rebuild Foundation, “Stony Island Arts Bank,” Rebuild Foundation, accessed December 1, 2015, https://rebuild-
foundation.org/site/stony-island-arts-bank.
58
LaTrace, “Inside Theaster Gates' New Stony Island Arts Bank, Opening October 3.”

23
money came through the sale of limited-edition “bond certificates” that Gates designed on piece
of the bank’s original marble. He engraved the slabs with an image of the bank and the statement
“In ART We Trust,” producing 100 small bonds that sold for $5,000 and a number of larger
bonds that were $50,000.
59
One can interpret this as an obvious (albeit clever) alternative to the
American motto "In God We Trust" that is printed on our nation's currency, but it seems to signal
more than that. As the driving force behind Gates's projects, art is the activity that he values
highly and entrusts.
Stony Island Arts Bank hosts site-specific art commissions and exhibitions, artist and
scholar residencies, and houses a portion of Rebuild’s archival and collections material.
60
It is the
only space out of Rebuild’s sites in Greater Grand Crossing that has regular business hours, and
it is where the organization has their headquarters. One of the rooms in the building has three
walls that are covered from floor to ceiling with shelving displaying a collection of publications
that were donated by Johnson Publishing, a Chicago-based company who is most well-known for
issuing the magazines Ebony and Jet (Figure 6). The extraordinarily high ceilings and brightly
colored books make a stark visual impact and evoke a sense of awe. Another room contains a
collection of vinyl records by the late legendary Chicago house DJ, Frankie Knuckles. Both of
these archives have special significance to locals, particularly in the black community. Visitors
are allowed to engage with the materials after completing a short orientation session with one of
the Rebuild’s staff members.
61

59
Ben Austen, “Chicago’s Opportunity Artist,” New York Times Magazine, December 20, 2013, accessed January
15, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/chicagos-opportunity-artist.html?_r=1.
60
Rebuild Foundation, “Stony Island Arts Bank.”
61
Jessica Mlinarc, “Photos: Inside Theaster Gates’ Grand Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicagoist, October 23, 2015,
accessed December 1, 2015, http://chicagoist.com/2015/10/23/photos_inside_the_stony_island_arts.php#photo-1

24
The sites that I have described are distinct in that they were established at different times
under specific circumstances and have their own unique focuses — whether that is the
celebration of black film at the Black Cinema House or an integration of art and housing at the
DA + HC. While looking to the future of Greater Grand Crossing, Gates aims to ignite interest
within the existing community and respect the people and history that is already present. It is in
this sense that he describes his work as that of a “good neighbor” instead of a “community do-
gooder.”
62
Rather than dictate his solitary vision, he hopes to create an exchange with his
neighbors and acknowledge the multifaceted culture within the community. His role is that of a
mediator who leverages his resources and position to cultivate activity in a place that was
previously overlooked by the majority of the city. Gates describes this as “the art of staying” or
“mission-based living” — actively participating in how your neighborhood functions and
working to improve its conditions.
63

In a somewhat sensational but genuine statement Gates explains this notion, particularly
in how it plays out in Chicago, saying:
Instead of living in [Hyde Park's] University district, or the Greenwood Row Houses in a
three million-dollar building—which is fine, and if you can do it that's great—what
would happen if someone who had resources that extensive would take up a block like
Dorchester and just be a good neighbor? They could argue with the city because they
were insiders to a neighborhood that had need. And they could articulate the need
because they had need too. So instead of always living outside of a problem and articulating
a problem for other people, I'm like, "No. Your source should be backed up." Because there
are some blocks where people don't get car boots, they don't get tickets, their sewers don't
back up, [tree] limbs don't fall down. Because somebody's handling that on the front end,
calling and saying, "Mr. Mayor, tell your boot-giving motherfuckers not to come down this
street."
64

62
Reinhardt, “Theaster Gates’s Dorchester Projects in Chicago,” 201.
63
James S. Russell, “Theaster Gates Sells Fire Hoses to Rebuild Chicago Slums,” Bloomberg, December 17, 2012,
accessed December 5, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-18/theaster-gates-sells-fire-hoses-to-
rebuild-chicago-slums.
64
Hartt, “The Dorchester Project: An Interview with Theaster Gates,” 75.

25
Gates and the Rebuild Foundation’s redevelopment projects show us how artists can intervene in
systems beyond the art institution and work in the public realm. They can leverage their power to
draw attention to issues in their communities and advocate for change. Because of the artist’s
training and interest in city planning, he is especially experienced with how these structures
function. “Understanding how bureaucratic systems work and even how to invent and tweak
them is a very big part of my practice,” Gates explains. “I’m not a good perspective drawer, but I
can write a really good memo.”
65
This is vital to the success of his projects as he navigates
between various political and institutional channels.

65
Austen, “Chicago’s Opportunity Artist.”

26
ARTISTIC PREDECESORS

The projects I have outlined by Gates and the Rebuild Foundation in Greater Grand
Crossing started in 2005 and are evolving each day — therefore while they have been ongoing
for over a decade, they are still rather recent endeavors in the art historical canon. Gates’s work
is in a lineage of artists who were experimenting with new forms and strategies of art making
that called for greater engagement between artists, objects, audiences, and sites of everyday life.
In the mid-twentieth century, artist Allan Kaprow sought to integrate these elements through his
performance pieces known as Happenings. Kaprow wanted to blur these distinctions through
unconventional productions that involved the interaction between performers and audience
members. The artist stated that in Happenings, “[t]he line between art and life should be kept as
fluid, and perhaps indistinct as possible.”
66

Happenings turned spectators into participants, creating an embodied art experience.
Kaprow first used the term “Happening” in his 1958 essay “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock” and
his first public Happening was 18 Happenings in Six Parts in 1959.
67
This event was more
scripted than Kaprow’s later works, as it involved instructions directing audience members on
how to act and move about the space. It consisted of eighteen simultaneous performances of
different forms and media, such as music, painting, and reading, and had various visual, aural,
and olfactory components.
68
The piece explored all the senses, engaging audiences in a new way
by merging elements from everyday life with high art concepts.

66
Allan Kaprow, Assemblage, Environments & Happenings (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1966), 188-89.
67
In 1952, John Cage organized the performance Theater Piece No. 1 at Black Mountain College. This work is
considered an early Happening and a predecessor to the Happenings of the 1960s.
68
Jennifer Gonzales and Adrienne Posner, “Facture for Change: US Activist Art Since 1950,” in A Companion to
Contemporary Art Since 1945, ed. Amelia Jones (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 217.

27
18 Happenings in Six Parts set the stage for future Happenings that activated audience
members as participants, producing a more inclusive and distinctive art experience. As Jennifer
Gonzales and Adrienne Posner explain:
The intention was expressly to alter the relationship between the viewer and performer,
viewer and objects, viewer and mise-en-scène. Alan Kaprow, along with John Cage, Red
Grooms, Robert Whitman, Jim Dine, Carolee Schneemann, Merce Cunningham, and
others thereby attempted to dispel the myth that art is distinct from life, that art is primarily
a visual experience, or that it is something that can only be executed by trained specialists.
Their installations and performances were designed to involve the audience, to be relevant
to the moment, and to involve the audience in a visceral, literal way.
69

The work being produced by these artists was in direct contrast to the popular “art for art’s sake”
ideology that was propagated by critics such as Clement Greenberg who thought art should
maintain a separate integrity.
70
Kaprow, in contrast, sought to integrate the spheres of art and life
and believed that artists should engage with subjects and materials from their everyday
experiences.
Kaprow is not the first artist to explore elements of social engagement, but his work and
teachings on art and collectivity are highly influential.
71
Lacy, who met the artist at the
California Institute of the Arts in the 1970s while studying in the Feminist Art Program (FAP),
explains the impact of his practice in the introduction to Mapping the Terrain. She wants to chart
an alternative history of public art that recognizes the importance of Kaprow and other
pioneering artists to the development of this field, such as Judy Chicago, the co-founder of
FAP.
72
Her writing challenges the traditional narrative of public art that privileges outdoor

69
Ibid.
70
Clement Greenberg, “‘American-Type’ Painting” (1958), in Art and Culture: Critical Essays, ed. Clement
Greenberg (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 227.
71
One can trace this to early twentieth-century avant-garde movements such as Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and the
Bauhaus that also promoted social and socio-political engagement in varying degrees.
72
Moira Roth, “Suzanne Lacy on the Feminist Program at Fresno State and CalArts,” East of Borneo, December 15,
2011, accessed January 5, 2016, http://www.eastofborneo.org/articles/suzanne-lacy-on-the-feminist-program-at-
fresno-state-and-calarts.

28
sculpture over more socially engaged works that were also being produced in the public realm.
As Lacy states:
Artists as diverse as Allan Kaprow, Anna Halprin, and Hans Haacke in the sixties and
Lynn Hershman, Judy Chicago, Adrian Piper, and Judith Baca in the seventies were
operating under different assumptions and aesthetic visions. Not easily classifiable within
a discourse dominated by objects, their work was considered under other rubrics, such as
political, performance, or media art; hence the broader implications for both art and
society were unexplored by art criticism.
73

By bringing these artists into the discourse, Lacy expands the definition of public art specifically
within the American context. Furthermore, she creates a lineage between these earlier works and
those of artists in the eighties and nineties who were addressing pressing issues current to their
situations such as racism, gender discrimination, censorship, and the AIDS epidemic. Lacy labels
this type of work as “new genre public art” and states that while this work can be made by
anyone regardless of their political affiliation, it tended to be liberal or radical in nature.
74
These
artists were influenced by Kaprow’s work and teachings, but engaged with more critical subject
matter in their own practices. Jeff Kelley writes of this next generation’s application of these
strategies stating, “It was assumed by many activist artists that Happenings, if scaled to
ideological proportions of feminism, might change society.”
75
As Kaprow and the artists of the
sixties were formative for Lacy, Lacy and her contemporaries of new genre public art laid the
groundwork for Gates.
Lacy identifies the beginnings of what we commonly understand as contemporary civic
art in the United States with the launch of the Art in Public Places Program by the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in 1967 and the formation of state and city percent-for-art

73
Suzanne Lacy, “Introduction,” in Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, ed. Suzanne Lacy (Seattle: Bay
Press, 1994). 25.
74
Ibid., 30.
75
Jeff Kelley, Childsplay: The Art of Allan Kaprow (California: University of California Press, 2007), 146.

29
programs that followed.
76
These initiatives were closely linked with architectural and urban
development plans and rose out of the reformative principles of the Great Society era. It is not
coincidental that the Fair Housing Act was passed just one year later, as there was a progressive
shift in politics and public thinking that was spurred by social activism. Grant Kester explains
how ideas about public art in this period were developed, by stating:
In this view [during the Great Society era] the state is obligated not simply to guarantee the
basic rights provided by the classic liberalism (the protection of property, military defense,
and so on), but to actively ameliorate the social costs imposed by the ongoing expansion
of industrial, and postindustrial, capitalism. At the risk of overgeneralizing, the mission of
early public art programs was to ensure that the cultural good of art was equitably
distributed and not solely dependent on the (implicitly elitist) delivery mechanisms of the
private art market.
77

There was a belief that art carried an inherent value and could improve social conditions,
specifically in urban areas that were the most effected by postindustrial expansion, and I would
add, racist planning practices. If art became accessible outside of the institution, it would in turn
enhance the character and value of public spaces. While this seemed well-intentioned, there were
issues with this type of public art agenda as these efforts were not necessarily neighborhood-
driven — works were created without much consideration of how the local population would
engage with the pieces.
During this time and moving into the seventies, public art commissions mainly consisted
of monumental sculptures that were larger-scale versions of an artist’s studio work produced for
galleries or museums.
78
The first Art in Public Places Program commission, Alexander Calder’s
La Grande Vitesse (1967) in Grand Rapids Michigan, exemplifies this approach.
79
The massive,

76
Lacy, Mapping the Terrain, 21.
77
Grant H. Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2011), 187.
78
Lacy, Mapping the Terrain, 22.
79
Kwon, One Place After Another, 60.

30
bright red steel sculpture sits in an open plaza near City Hall, serving as a landmark and
centerpiece of that space. By the late seventies and early eighties however, the NEA funded more
site-specific art commissions. There was a shift from just presenting monumental, static
sculptures to include nontraditional media and works that were responding to the historical,
environmental, or sociological aspects of their sites. This called for a closer collaboration
between artists and civic administrators, as artists were beginning to be directly involved in
choosing the location where their works would be presented.
80
Since artwork was being
produced for outdoor spaces and displayed outside of the comparatively neutral museum setting,
there were new considerations about the context of the location.
By the early nineties, there was another shift in public art discourse that addressed
questions of audience and public interface with the work. The NEA advocated in their guidelines
that communities should be included in the process of commissioning new public art through
planned discussions and educational activities.
81
The temporary exhibition Culture in Action:
New Public Art in Chicago, which unfolded over several months in summer 1993 exemplifies
this change in public art programming. Conceived by curator Mary Jane Jacob and sponsored by
the nonprofit organization Sculpture Chicago, the goal of Culture in Action was to activate
various sites in the city and, in turn, develop public art projects with diverse audiences. The
exhibition focused on the participation of local residents in the creation of artworks and rejected
the notion that architects and design professionals were the sole authorities on art within urban
spaces.
82
The eight resulting collaborations included projects such as a neighborhood parade
produced by Daniel J. Martinez, VinZula Kara, and the West Side Three-Point Marchers, as well

80
Lacy, Mapping the Terrain, 23.
81
Ibid., 24.
82
Kwon, One Place After Another, 104.

31
as a hydroponic garden to grow foods for HIV/AIDS patients developed by art collective Haha
(Richard House, Wendy Jacob, Laurie Palmer, and John Ploof) and a group of health care
volunteers called Flood.
83

Lacy charts this progression — from objects in museums, to objects in public places, to
site-specific installations, to politically and socially engaged work — emphasizing that this was
not a simple formal advancement.
84
Public art programming evolved with changing attitudes
about the role art can have in the public realm; a shift that Lacy emphasizes was ignited by artists
like Kaprow and developed with new genre public art. Practitioners of new genre public art
called for a greater engagement between artists, audiences, and issues pertinent to their everyday
lives, emphasizing the specific nature of the community rather than the physical site. Kwon
explains this new focus by stating:
Strangely echoing the arguments posed against the earlier site-indifferent models of art-in
-public-places and art-as-public-spaces, many artists and critics now register their desire
to better serve and engage the public, to further close the gap between art and life, by
expressing a deep dissatisfaction with site specificity.
85

Their rejection of traditional notions of site-specificity was a strategic move to bring closer the
poles of production and reception.
86
Audiences for public art would become participants, and
have an active and vital role in the creation of the projects that were developed for their
communities.
Lacy is a leading figure in the art field that we now call social practice, although the work
that she was doing predates this label. In the mid-2000s, the term began to proliferate in
contemporary art circles and is now commonly used to define or categorize various socially

83
Ibid., 102.
84
Lacy, Mapping the Terrain, 24-25.
85
Kwon, One Place After Another, 108.
86
Ibid., 109.

32
engaged practices.
87
Lacy’s ambitious and large-scale public works helped expand the limits of
art making and exemplify how artists can apply aesthetic and performative strategies to action-
oriented social projects. One of the artist’s most celebrated and monumental works is The
Oakland Projects that took place between 1991 and 2001. In this project, Lacy collaborated with
teens, adults, and civic leaders in Oakland, California to produce workshops, discussions, and
events that addressed a wide range of topics facing the youth such as education, sexuality,
pregnancy, police discrimination, and drug use.
There were eight main parts of the project that each had their own distinct goals and
strategies. Expectations Summer Project (1997) was a six-week summer art program focused on
issues facing teen parents that pregnant and parenting high-schoolers could complete for school
credit. The Roof is on Fire (1993-1994) involved a large performative production on a rooftop
garage in which 220 high school students sitting in 100 parked cars engaged in informal
conversations on a wide range of topics specific to their demographic as over 1,000 community
members listened in. In the lead up to this event, Lacy and her collaborators worked with local
teachers to create a media literacy curriculum that trained students about production and media.
The performance was also aired as a one-hour documentary on a local television station and
reported on in other regional and national news outlets.
During one part of The Oakland Projects, Lacy was involved in the planning team on a
measure developed by city council member Sheila Jordan to improve the relationship between
teens and police called Oakland Youth Policy. Coinciding with this policy initiative, the artist
organized a basketball match between the youth and police called No Blood/No Foul (1995-

87
In 2005, the California Institute for the Arts established an MFA program in Social Practice. In 2012, Pablo
Helguera published Education for Socially Engaged Art, the first book designed as a practical handbook for artists
interested in social practice.

33
1996). The event brought these groups together on common ground in an effort to incite positive
interaction and dialogue. No Blood/No Foul was elaborate and multifaceted, as it involved policy
interventions, collaboration with city council, a media strategy, video documentary, and direct
resources to participating youth.
88
Lacy worked with different parties to orchestrate the work,
acting as a mediator between the local government, media, and Oakland community to spark new
forms of civic engagement.
By discussing Lacy’s The Oakland Projects in an essay about Gates, I hope to underscore
the commonalities between their practices. Lacy is a tactful and conscious artist who understands
the nuances and challenges of working in the public realm, specifically with a disenfranchised
population. Her long-term project was developed with the community in mind, turning neighbors
into active participants. Lacy used her platform and skills as an artist and connections as Dean of
the California College of the Arts, to not only work with institutions and civic leaders, but also
challenge their policies. Like Gates and the Rebuild Foundation who would follow after her,
Lacy successfully intervened in the existing structures and offered new approaches for engaging
with the community. Although her project did not involve the renovation of a physical space for
ongoing use, it did make use of various sites in the neighborhood — the basketball court in No
Blood/No Foul, the rooftop garage in The Roof is on Fire, among others. By interceding in the
local educational and legal systems and contributing to policy making, her project made an
impact on the community, and in this sense has a resonating effect.
89

88
Suzanne Lacy, “The Oakland Projects,” Suzanne Lacy, accessed January 5, 2016,
http://www.suzannelacy.com/early-works/#/the-oakland-projects.
89
No Blood/No Foul was recently presented as an installation in the exhibition Citizen Culture: Artists and
Architects Shape Policy (September 12 - December 20, 2014), curated by Lucía Sanromán at the Santa Monica
Museum of Art. This exhibition was distinct in that it only featured social practice projects that have affected public
policy.

34
Another important predecessor to Gates is artist Rick Lowe and his organization Project
Row Houses (PRH) in Houston, Texas. Lowes founded PRH in 1993 along with artists James
Bettison, Bert Long, Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith as a
community arts and culture non-profit organization. PRH is located in the city’s oldest African-
American neighborhoods, the northern Third Ward, and was developed to be a positive and
creative resource for this specific community and celebrate their history and culture. On the
organization’s website, it states that it is “a unique experiment in activating the intersections
between art, historic preservation, affordable and innovative housing, community relations and
development, neighborhood revitalization, and human empowerment.”
90
PRH and the Rebuild
Foundation have similar missions and organizational structures that rely on a mix of specialized
talents and combine aspects of arts programming, community advocacy, education, and urban
planning.
The idea to start PRH came to Lowe when he was working at a community center in the
Third Ward named SHAPE (Self Help for African People Through Education). The organization
was analyzing which buildings in the neighborhood were hazardous to the community and
identified twenty-two abandoned homes on one block as the worst in the area. SHAPE suggested
that the city demolish these structures, as they were in poor condition and unfit for use in their
current state. The homes were “shotgun” style cottages built between the post-Civil War and the
1930s throughout parts of the South.
91
These small, narrow residences had been closely
associated with working-class African-American culture and carried a symbolic weight. bell
hooks describes this architecture type stating:

90
Project Row Houses, “Mission & History,” Project Row Houses, accessed January 15, 2016,
http://projectrowhouses.org/about/mission-history.
91
Kester, The One and the Many, 214.

35
Traditional shotgun houses hold an architectural legacy of African-American experience
that once destroyed cannot be built again. Unlike modern buildings, like the World Trade
Center, the traditional shotgun and its context cannot be endlessly reincarnated.
92

Lowe sought a way to preserve this past while serving current and future community residents.
Rather than tear down these historic sites, he saw an opportunity for revitalization that would
positively recast these spaces and transform them into a vital neighborhood resource, reasserting
their cultural worth.
Lowe was able to purchase the homes with money from the NEA and private
philanthropic foundations. He worked with Rice University’s School of Architecture to
rehabilitate the houses, denoting seven renovated spaces to serve as transitional homes for single
mothers and eight for an artist residency program.
93
Throughout the years, PRH has expanded
and worked with local residents and community groups to create new programs and
opportunities in the neighborhood. This includes: the Young Mothers Program that supplies not
only housing to mothers but also counseling on parenting and personal growth; the Public Art
Program and Artist Rounds that foster artistic activity in the community; educational initiatives
that provide youth with tutoring and art instruction; as well as community markets and the
Incubation Program that give local entrepreneurs mentorship guidance and allow them to
promote their businesses and products.
94
This range of activity is what distinguishes PRH from
community art projects that are temporary or have one end goal. PRH functions as a central hub
for various programs and ideas to flourish in the neighborhood.

92
bell hooks, “House Art: Merging Public and Private,” in Row: Trajectories Through the Shotgun House (Houston:
Rice University School of Architecture, 2004), 24.
93
Kester, The One and the Many, 215.
94
Project Row Houses, “Programs,” Project Row Houses, accessed January 5, 2016, http://projectrowhouses.org.

36
In 2003, Row Houses Community Development Corporation (CDC) was established as a
sister organization to PRH to develop additional affordable housing structures in the northern
Third Ward.
95
As the area was transformed by these new projects, it became more attractive to
outsiders and developers became interested in the area. The establishment of Row Houses CDC
was a significant marker in PRH’s trajectory, as they had to scale their thinking to consider the
larger implications of their work and the problematic side of urban redevelopment initiatives.
96

As Tom Finkelpearl explains:
Instead of critiquing development policies through political art, Project Row Houses has
itself become a developer. Lowe told me [Finkelpearl] that speculators infringing on the
neighborhood are an inevitable part of the equation that cannot simply be wished away. If
he hears that people are calling around the community looking to buy property he gets on
the phone to see whether there might be a parcel of land owned by Project Row Houses
that he can sell them at the right price in order to purchase another lot that has more strategic
significance.
97

It is important to the mission of PRH that the Third Ward remains affordable and an asset to the
existing community in which it is embedded. By addressing this at a critical stage in the project’s
development, Lowe took a proactive approach and devised a strategy to help counteract this
reality. He accepts that new housing for middle- and upper-income residents would open up in
the neighborhood, but insists that there needs to remain affordable rental options and assistance
for low-income people wishing to buy homes.
98

This approach mirrors what Gates and the Rebuild Foundation would do with the
DA+HC. In both instances, we find community-based arts and culture organizations that are
pitted with the problem of gentrification in their neighborhoods. PRH and Rebuild Foundation

95
Row House CDC, “About,” Row Houses CDC, accessed January 5, 2016, http://www.rowhousecdc.org/about.
96
Kester, The One and the Many, 217.
97
Tom Finkelpearl, What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2013), 354.
98
Kester, The One and the Many, 220.

37
were the major catalysts that ignited the change in these areas, but their goals were to revive the
existing community and not displace it. Nevertheless, they both took responsibility for these
actions and sought ways to counterbalance the effects. By working in their respective
communities for long periods of time — 11-plus years for Gates, 23-plus for Lowe, and to be
included in this conversation, 10 for Lacy — they devised projects that would enrich yet sustain
their neighborhoods.
In a recent survey on public art, Public Art (Now): Out of Time, Out of Place, editor
Claire Doherty states that when analyzing and debating contemporary public art we must
consider the “time” alongside the “place” of these projects.
99
Although Doherty sees a value in
both temporary interventions and long-term works, it is worth noting the importance of this
element in distinguishing between various projects.
100
Gates’s Dorchester Projects are discussed
in this publication under the section titled “Occupation,” which includes works that straddle the
contradictory spheres of utopia and reality and can serve as radical models of being in our
society. According to Doherty, these projects reveal:
...the potential of public art to expose and respond to the encroachment of corporate interest
on public space, to the diminishing opportunities for social cohesion and to the invisibility
of the displaced and disposed in public life. But more than simply holding a mirror to
society, these artists offer productive alternatives by occupying the centre to reassert the
periphery.
101

Gates’s projects in Greater Grand Crossing, like Lowe’s and Lacy’s, conjure the imagination
while claiming a stake in the world. In their work, we see how socially engaged art projects can
have real social and political efficacy.

99
Claire Doherty, “Introduction,” in Public Art (Now): Out of Time, Out of Place, ed. Claire Doherty (London: Art
Books Publishing, 2015), 14.
100
Ibid., 16.
101
Claire Doherty, “Occupation,” in Public Art (Now): Out of Time, Out of Place, ed. Claire Doherty (London: Art
Books Publishing, 2015), 156.

38
CONCLUSION

The projects that I have identified in conjunction with Gates and the Rebuild Foundation
involve a deep engagement with the community they are embedded and the various government
and cultural institutions that make this work possible. While they operate within the
establishment, they make vital interventions by producing opportunities for those who have been
marginalized by their structures to participate in creative programs and strengthen their
communities. What contributes to their effectiveness is a great level of time and commitment.
Nato Thompson describes works such as these as symbolizing a “strategic turn” in the field of
socially engaged art practice. He borrows the concepts “tactical” and “strategic” from French
theorist Michel de Certeau's text The Practice of Everyday Life and uses them to explain the
different approaches.
102
Thompson states, “If the tactical is a temporary, interventionist form of
trespass, the strategic is the long-term investment in space.”
103
Strategic projects are “explicitly
local, long-term, and community-based,” continues Thompson.
104
These three aspects are vital to
forging strong, sustainable relationships and creating meaningful exchange.
Gates understands the neighborhood in which he is working on a personal level, and is
interested in forming a dialogue with the residents rather than prescribing a single “solution” to
the issues facing their community. It is for these reasons that Gates’s practice is revered as a
model in the fields of social practice and creative place-making. Kester discusses some of the
potential problems of short-sighted community-based public art in his essay, “Aesthetic

102
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
103
Nato Thompson, Living as Form (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012), 31.
104
Ibid.

39
Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art.”
105
The author
explains that artists who want to work in the public realm with underserved communities such as
the urban poor must prepare themselves with more than good intentions and intuition.
106
They
must make time to learn about these communities, collaborate with them, and partake in a
process of mutual education where their assumptions can be challenged.
107
There must be a
balanced relationship between the artist and the community that he or she wants to serve and
essentially represent. While Gates is clearly the figurehead of the Rebuild Foundation, he is
insistent on collaboration and creates space for others to help develop, contribute, and participate
in his projects.
Kester continues to state that it is problematic if an artist is completely differentiated
from the community and is speaking on behalf of those that he or she should be working with.
108

He illustrates his point with several examples, but the most explicative case is that of artist Dawn
Dedeaux and her works Soul Shadows and Urban Warrior Myths from 1990. While leading art
workshops for prisoners and juvenile offenders, Dedeaux had an idea to create a multi-media
installation that would teach visitors about the hard realities of prison life.
109
Although well-
intentioned and praised by audiences, a major focus of the project became Dedeaux’s own
heroism as a white women working with this population.
110
She also declared that one of the
goals was to scare straight potential “Youth at Risk,” suggesting that urban criminality was an

105
Grant Kester, “Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art,”
Afterimage (January 1995), Gale (A16737233).
106
Ibid., 17.
107
Ibid., 6.
108
Ibid., 3.
109
Ibid., 13.
110
Ibid., 14.

40
individual problem and not a systematic failure.
111
Therefore, the project proved to be alienating
and reinforced major stereotypes about this population.
Kester acknowledges that there may have been some good that came out of project, but
explains the main downfalls by stating:
Rather than work with a politically coherent community in the prison (a collaboration
that might well have challenged many of Dedeaux's own preconceptions), Dedeaux chose
to work with younger inmates (children are the exemplary subjects of reform because
they represent the individual at his or her most malleable state) and the Hardy brothers, a
pair of very intelligent but relatively nihilistic gang members. Dedeaux presents the
prisoners primarily as individuals whose only common link is their tragic fate, a
condition brought about by social neglect and their own moral failure.
112

With this example, we see the difference between works like Soul Shadows and Urban Warrior
Myths versus the projects in Greater Grand Crossing. Dedeaux does not fully address the cultural
and racial complexities of the community with which she is working, while Gates and Rebuild
have a deeper knowledge about the neighborhood where their projects are set, its residents, and
Chicago politics. Their work acknowledges the larger, organized problems that have led to
disenfranchisement, and does not fault the individual subject who is embedded in this system.
The level of agency granted to their respective communities also cannot be understated — as
Dedeaux is working with an incarcerated population with restricted rights.
While it can be problematic to speak on behalf of others and there are issues with the
existing structures, we should not abandon them fully. Rather, we should aim to transform these
systems and make them more representative. Mouffe advocates for a strategy of radical politics
that engages with institutions instead of withdrawing from them.
113
She explains that, “When
representation is seen as the problem, the aim cannot be to engage with current institutions to

111
Ibid., 16.
112
Ibid.
113
Mouffe, Agonistics, 71.

41
make them more representative and more accountable, the aim is to discard them entirely,” and
continues to counter this by stating, “[w]hat needs to be challenged is the lack of alternatives
offered to citizens, not the very idea of representation.”
114
Her theory corresponds directly to the
democratic process and is relegated to a discursive public realm, but it applies to our question
about how artists can intervene in cultural institutions. Gates’s projects in Greater Grand
Crossing attempt to be more inclusive, by engaging with audiences that are alienated from high
art and local politics — making these institutions “more representative and more accountable” to
this community.
The merging of art and social activism is not necessarily new, as argued by Lacy and
others discussed, but what is particularly interesting about Gates is that he is revered for his
studio work and neighborhood projects. These two spheres of his practice are interconnected, as
he uses money from the sale of work to finance his projects and often creates works from
materials salvaged from the buildings. He incorporates his own aesthetic into the spaces, which
further unify the sites with his objects and performances. As Doherty explains:
...the social value of the initiative and its local users, frequent participants, funders and
the city at large is further enhanced by the artistic value ascribed to the gathered materials
through their use as objects for exhibition, veneration and, in some instances, collection.

Just as this South Side territory acts as a gathering point and resource for ongoing
activities, so Dorchester Projects and Gates’s studio acts as the production nerve centre
for a set of worldwide projects that are consciously framed within the institutional
context of an art exhibition (such as his contribution to dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012),
thereby creating a circular economy.
115

When Gates was represented by Chicago gallerist Kavi Gupta (the artist is now solely
represented by White Cube in London), the dealer brought the city’s most prolific collectors to

114
Ibid., 125.
115
Claire Doherty, “Theaster Gates,” in Public Art (Now): Out of Time, Out of Place, ed. Claire Doherty (London:
Art Books Publishing, 2015), 167.

42
the Dorchester Projects. Gupta’s clients acquired works by the artist, but also inquired about how
their foundations could support and contribute to his larger initiative.
116
All of these elements
and aspects of his practice participate in a cyclical exchange.
In Gates, we find a cultural producer who is accomplished as an artist and academic, but
is also devoted to the community in which he lives and works. Building off a lineage of artists
who want to blur the distinctions between art and life (starting with Kaprow), and address
pressing societal issues in their practices (exemplified by Lacy and Lowe), Gates is continuing in
this trajectory. Through the Rebuild Foundation, he is able to expand his reach as an individual
artist and create large-scale, ongoing projects in Greater Grand Crossing and beyond. Their work
is quite ambitious, and it is vital to question the social efficacy and sustainability of these
endeavors. Although nothing is truly permanent, we can see from Gates’s already decade-long
investment that this type of work is substantial. The launch of the expanded Place Lab signifies a
new, important phase into further analyzing Rebuild's projects.
While Gates's practice is complex, the city in which he is working is charged with a
complicated past and present, and the art world as a whole has problematic tensions. The spaces
that he has developed have a stable presence in Chicago, but their identities and functions will
continue to evolve over time. In my thesis, I have argued that although Gates and the Rebuild
Foundation do not offer a perfect model for urban redevelopment, their projects are remarkable
in that they instigate movements of neighborhood revitalization through the arts. They
collaborate with others who are invested in this type of work, and carve out their own distinct
place in the cultural makeup of the city. "The art of staying" is as much about building up your

116
Austen, “Chicago’s Opportunity Artist.”

43
block as it is about building institutions — it is creating the space that you want to engage with
and bring others in.

44
APPENDIX WITH FIGURES

FIGURE 1
Exterior view of the Listening House. Source: Theaster Gates Studio.
Photograph by Robert Wade.

45

FIGURE 2
Exterior view of the Archive House, 2009 (left) and 2013 (right).
Source: Theaster Gates Studio. Photograph by Sara Pooley.

46

FIGURE 3
Interior view of the Black Cinema House during an event.
Source: Rebuild Foundation.

47

FIGURE 4
Exterior view of the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative.
Source: Brinshore Development. Photograph by Sara Pooley.

48

FIGURE 5
Exterior view of the Stony Island Arts Bank. Source: Curbed Chicago.
Photograph by AJ LaTrace.

49

FIGURE 6
Interior view of the Stony Island Arts Bank with the Johnson Publishing library.
Source: Curbed Chicago. Photograph by AJ LaTrace.

50
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Asset Metadata

Creator Samborska, Paulina (author)

Core Title The art of staying: Theaster Gates and the Rebuild Foundation

School Roski School of Art and Design

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere

Publication Date 05/02/2016

Defense Date 04/12/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Chicago,contemporary art,OAI-PMH Harvest,public art,Rebuild Foundation,social practice,Theaster Gates

Format application/pdf (imt)

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Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Moss, Karen (committee chair), Tain, John (committee member), Wedell, Noura (committee member)

Creator Email psamborska@gmail.com,samborsk@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-246496

Unique identifier UC11278122

Identifier etd-SamborskaP-4397.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-246496 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SamborskaP-4397.pdf

Dmrecord 246496

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Samborska, Paulina

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA