AMES, Iowa — Internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Theaster Gates, Jr., is the recipient of the 2024 Christian Petersen Design Award presented by the Iowa State University College of Design.This award — established in 1980 to recognize alumni, staff and friends of the university for contributions to the advancement of design through personal aesthetic achievement, exceptional support or extraordinary encouragement and service — is the highest honor the college bestows.

Gates, of Chicago, received a bachelor of science in community and regional planning in 1996, a master of arts in interdisciplinary graduate studies in 2005 and an honorary doctor of humane letters in 2018, all from Iowa State.

He will be recognized as part of Iowa State’s homecoming celebration at the ISU Alumni Association’s 93rd Honors and Awards Ceremony at 1:30 p.m. CT Friday, Nov. 1, at Stephens Auditorium in Ames and streamed live online. A dessert reception will follow. Both the ceremony and reception are free and open to the public.

Gates’ work finds roots in conceptual formalism, sculpture, space theory, land art and performance. His artistic philosophy is guided by the concepts of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Animism — most notably honoring the “spirit within things.”

He is a professor in the University of Chicago Department of Visual Arts and the founder and artistic director of the Rebuild Foundation in Chicago. Foundational to Gates’ practice is his custodianship and critical redeployment of culturally significant Black objects, archive and spaces.

Over the past five years, Gates has exhibited and performed at The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; The LUMA Foundation, Arles, France; The New Museum, New York; The Aichi Triennial, Tokoname, Japan; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Tate Liverpool, UK; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany; Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

In 2022 he was the first non-architect commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion in London, realized with support from Adjaye Associates.

Gates is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2023 Isamu Noguchi Award, Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Award, and National Buildings Museum Vincent Scully Prize; 2022 Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts; 2021 Royal Institute of British Architects Honorary Fellowship; 2020 World Economic Forum Crystal Award; 2018 J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development and Nasher Sculpture Prize; and 2017 Sprengel Museum Kurt Schwitters Prize and French Legion d’honneur.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Contacts

Sabina Bokhari, Theaster Gates Studio, sabina@theastergates.com
Heather Sauer, Director of Strategic Communications, College of Design, 515-294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

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