A short and sweet post about my brief visit the The White Cube Gallery a couple of weeks ago to see the Theaster Gates Exhibition Freedom of Assembly.
I'm not going to talk extensively about this experience as I think the link to the film articulates it far more than I could put in to words.
The images below were taken in one of the three rooms.
This collection of work was the reason I wanted to visit. A vast open space houses an selection of huge imposing black tar canvases. I think it's obvious to anyone how knows me…. Why these simplistic, powerful material led works stopped me in my tracks with such a sudden bolt.
Enormous in scale, the subtle layers of tar and rubber were hardly visible until you really examined the surface. The light just caught sections hi-lighting these material based panels. They were strong and present within the space but at the same time there was also a quiet quality to them.
Each piece commanded your time to look and examine and simply be for a moment.
As the film explains in more detail the reason Gates used these particular materials and with that understanding and knowledge the works become deeply embedded with a sense of his family history through process a deep understanding of material behaviour and how the two cross over into different contexts.
