Theaster Gates: Unto Thee centers on the multifaceted practice of Theaster Gates and explores how he employs sculpture to expose the complexities of surrender and accumulation through a series of large-scale installations, music and film, and the redeployment of deaccessioned objects from the University of Chicago, where Gates is currently Professor of Visual Arts. 

Through a series of sculptural interventions meditating on sacrifice, rites, consecration, libation, vows and offerings, Gates elevates invisible labor, interrogates artistic legacies, questions economies of power, and, equally, celebrates Black artistic and intellectual contributions. The exhibition will present Gates's latest work that continues to build on the material legacies of under-recognized histories, voices, and, in some cases, institutional structures first mined in these University objects. Gates will temporarily reunite these objects and collections back at the University for this special exhibition. 

The large-scale solo exhibition will also be accompanied by a site-specific installation as part of the Museum’s Threshold Lobby Series, which will be on view through July 2026.

Read the Exhibition Listing