Theaster Gates on Building and Bridging Culture, From Chicago to Japan

Over the past two decades, the artist Theaster Gates has poured himself into his multifaceted practice that spans pottery, painting, sculpture, urban development, performance, archival research, and arts administration. Along the way, he has risen to become one of the most widely celebrated figures in the world of art, transforming abandoned, dormant buildings in Chicago’s Grand Crossing neighborhood, on the city’s South Side, into dynamic third spaces for social, cultural, and spiritual communion; linking his hometown of Chicago with Japan, where in 2004 he trained with master potters in the coastal city of Tokoname and has maintained a deep connection ever since; and effectively rescuing, recontextualizing, and resuscitating culturally significant archives. On this episode of Time Sensitive, our latest “site-specific” recording, Gates sits down with Spencer inside his personal library in Chicago to talk about his current exhibition, “Unto Thee,” at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art (on view through Feb. 22, 2026); his forward-looking vision for his latest project, The Land School, which he and his Rebuild Foundation have reshaped into an arts incubator; and the vast, alchemic impacts of music on his life and work. Special thanks to our Season 12 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes:  Theaster Gates [01:21] Dorchester Art and Housing Collaborative [03:33] The Land School (2025) [05:22] St. Laurence Elementary School [05:56] Solange Knowles [07:33] Stony Island Arts Bank [07:33] Rebuild Foundation [07:33] Black Cinema House [07:33] The Listening House [11:09] Jane Addams [11:09] Jane Jacobs [11:09] Jesse Jackson [11:49] Frederick Law Olmsted [11:49]  Huey P. Newton [12:09] Chicago Transit Authority [18:01] Cicero [21:50] Søren] Kierkegaard [21:50] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  [22:43] “Unto Thee” (2025) [26:15] Fred Moten [26:41] “Art Histories” (2020) [32:22] Tokoname [39:33] “The Listening House” (2022) [45:54] “Afro-Mingei" (2024) [45:54] Mingei [47:55] Black is Beautiful and Black Arts movements [1:03:34] Theaster Gates’s record collections [1:11:39] Martin Puryear [1:13:24] László Moholy-Nagy [1:13:24] Josef Albers [1:13:24] Carrie Mae Weems