On September 23rd, 2025, the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago opens Theaster Gates: Unto Thee—the renowned artist’s first major solo presentation in his hometown. On view through February 22nd, 2026, this powerful show marks a new chapter in Gates’s decades-long commitment to repurposing materials, reclaiming forgotten histories, and challenging institutional narratives.
The Theaster Gates exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art focuses on materials salvaged from the University of Chicago, where Gates teaches as Professor of Visual Arts. Lantern slides from the art history department, display cases from ancient culture archives, and concrete slabs from Midway Studios are just a few of the cast-off objects transformed into sculptural and conceptual forms. Most striking is a reimagining of wooden pews from Bond Chapel, assembled into a space of ritual and remembrance.
Alongside these installations, Gates showcases elements from his archive of Johnson Publishing Company materials, honoring Black cultural production. Other highlights include monumental ceramics and tar works, paying tribute to both Gates’s artistic evolution and his father’s legacy as a roofer.
Co-curated by Vanja Malloy and Galina Mardilovich, the show also features 350 African masks in the museum’s Threshold Lobby Series, accompanied by music from the archive of DJ Frankie Knuckles. The project positions Gates’s work within a larger civic mission—one rooted in Chicago’s South Side and in the redemptive potential of reuse.
The Theaster Gates exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art is supported by Northern Trust and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
For more personal insight into the artist’s process and philosophy, read our exclusive Theaster Gates interview, where he discusses community building, spiritual resistance, and why materials hold memory.