CULT OF THE BLACK MADONNA I. 2018.

Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, 2018

50 x 35cm, black on white silkscreen poster on  thin card with texts relating to Gates’ now famous archive of works and documents relating to African American culture.

Limited edition only available during the exhibition at Art Basel.

Gates is the lead singer of the band The Black Monks of Mississippi and has been appointed the first distinguished visiting artist and director of artist initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art, which is part of the Colby College Museum of Art. An urban planner by training, he rose to renown with Dorchester Projects, an urban redevelopment endeavour on Chicago’s impoverished South Side that he has described as «real estate art». His work continually aims to bridge the gulf between art and society and establish cultural communities as a way of initiating social, political, architectural, and urban change.

According to the Kunstmuseum weebsite: “Gates sees himself as a collector of collections and archives, especially of America’s black culture. He is especially interested in forgotten objects, images, and themes, which he integrates into his own creative practice. As a collector of marginalized and obscure archives, Gates will join the Kunstmuseum Basel in a critical engagement with the museum’s Eurocentric collection that will broach fundamental questions concerning its spatial and organizational structures. In his exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, which will be spread out across two of the museum’s venues, Gates will explore the cult of the Black Madonna, examining both its significance in the history of religion and its aesthetic and metaphorical tenor.”

This is one of two variant designs for this work. We offer the other also on this website.