Theaster Gates (born August 28, 1973) is an American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

[2] Gates' work has been shown at major museums and galleries internationally and deals with urban planning, religious space, and craft.

[3] Gates' art practice responds to disinvestment in African-American urban communities, particularly in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, addresses the importance of formal archives for remembering and valuing Black cultural forms, and disrupts artistic canons, especially those of post-painterly abstraction and color field painting.

[9] Gates is the founder and artist director of the Rebuild Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on cultural-driven redevelopment and affordable space initiatives in under-resourced communities.

Under Gates' leadership, the Rebuild Foundation currently manages projects in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood of Chicago.

[11] For the Dorchester Projects, Gates restored and converted vacant buildings into cultural institutions with archival collections from the South Side.

[16] The physical location of the Bank has also allowed Gates to host temporary exhibitions of artists, such as Glenn Ligon.

[19] This included: old sheet music, signs, pamphlets, coin banks, figurines - as part of the Edward Williams Collection.

The use of the hoses gestures to the extensive history of police departments using firehoses to attack protesters during the Civil Rights Movement.

In this role, he oversaw staff at the Arts Incubator in Washington Park and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, a wide network of resident and visiting artists (including current and former participants in our residency program), community participants, programmatic partners, and friends.

The Place Lab partnered with the demonstration cities of Gary, Akron, Detroit, and other Knight Foundation communities.

The central installation is the main gallery, which Gates lined with bricks fired black at a South Carolina brickworks.

[28] His exhibition Future Histories: Theaster Gates and Cauleen Smith, appeared at the SF MOMA from October 2020-May 2021.

[31][32] The exhibition, Theaster Gates: When Clouds Roll Away: Reflection and Restoration from the Johnson Archive, opened at the Stony Island Arts Center in 2024.

[34] Gates working as a team with architects Asif Khan Studio, Sir David Adjaye, and Mariam Kamara will undertake The Waterfront Transformation: Canning Dock project, which is part of the 10-year plan of National Museums Liverpool to transform the city's waterfront.

[53] Since 2019, he has been co-chairing the fashion group Prada's Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, alongside Ava DuVernay.