From an interview with Theaster Gates by Tom McDonough in Bomb Magazine a couple of years ago:
"There's a way of believing in the world that forces the artist and the creative in a culture to thing about materials in a loaded way. That predetermines how they will handle things, and then how those things will live in the world after."
"I don't know if what I'm making is art at all. Is it more about my relationship with my studio team? Or a conversation I'm trying to have with history? Is it a way of working through learning to believe?"
"How do I make meaning and make sense of the amassing of literal tons of raw material that is in the world to be reimagined?"
"You know, Tom, maybe I just like sweeping. It may not have anything to do with the reclamation of a past moment. Maybe sometimes it does, butit's not necessarily the creation of something new out of something old; sometimes it's just the inclination, or compulsion, to make something with what's around you, to tidy up the untidy."
"Sincerity is my irony."
