Theaster Gates Gifts David Drake Vessel to Descendants

“It started with youthful academic curiosity,” artist Theaster Gates says of his initial interest in the work of 19th-century slave-holding potter David Drake, also known as “Potter Dave.”

In the early 1990s, when Gates was an undergraduate at Iowa State University, he made ceramics that he said were based on “white American craftsmanship” from the 1960s, such as Peter Voulkos and Rudy Autio. While Gates admired the work, he recalled talking to his professor Ingrid Lilligren about the ancestry of the work he was doing and asking, “Are the only named people we know white?” He felt “there was no precedent for the kind of crafts I was interested in making.”

But Lilliglen recommended him to the school library, which contained a small catalog discussing Dave Porter, whose work was just beginning to gain wider recognition. “Dave was the archetype of the black poet-potter, and it was a way to develop an approach that believed more in myself. I believed in Dave more first: look at him, then look at me,” he said, adding that it made him ask himself, “Would it be possible for me to declare Dave as a way to prove my own black craftsmanship?”

Thus began Gates’ decades-long engagement with Drake’s work, including a 2010 exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum that included a hymnbook responding to David’s poems inscribed on several of his vessels. In a way, this all came to a head with Gates acquiring Drake’s work in 2021. “Dave was definitely in the back of my mind for 2021,” he said, noting that he thought to himself, “I think I’m ready. I think I want to invest in this.” He saw it as a way to “pay homage to all the ways that Dave has given meaning to my practice—for me to go to the studio and find Dave.”

Now, Gates has decided to gift his Drake containers to the artist’s descendants, who have recently made headlines for pursuing the “ethical return” of Drake art to the family, including last October securing the transfer of ownership of two Drake jars owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. To mark the occasion, Gates is making the ownership transfer, the Drake vessel, and his own Drake-related artwork the focus of an exhibition at Gagosian Park and 75 Space on the Upper East Side (through May 2). He describes the show as a way to “contribute to Dave.”

Drake’s place in mainstream art In the past decade, the world has changed dramatically and its aesthetic and historical value has been recognized, especially considering that Drake, as an enslaved black man living in Edgefield, South Carolina, took the surname of his slave owner after emancipation and was illegal to read. That he was able not only to sign his name to works that legally belonged to his slaves but also to write moving poems about them is a testament to Drake’s prowess as an artist and poet.

The most high-profile exhibition at Drake Art is “Hear Me Now: Black Potters in Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” which debuts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2022 before traveling to Boston, Atlanta, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Over the past decade, Drake’s descendants have learned about their ancestor just a decade ago and sought to reclaim ownership of their ancestor’s art, an effort that began in earnest after the opening of “Hear Me Now.”

“We wanted to take home all the jars that Dave took out,” Yaba Baker, one of Drake’s descendants, told us. art news in an interview. “We don’t want this to be a zero-sum game.” Instead, the family is looking at each case to figure out what’s best for both parties to “make it more of a moral ownership.” Baker said the family still hopes the museum will display Drake’s work “because his story is an amazing story that everyone can learn from.”

Although at least 60 institutions and numerous private collectors own more than 200 of Drake’s surviving works, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which co-organized the traveling exhibition, is the only institution to date to publicly announce the return of such works. In its wall label, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, describes the provenance and ownership of Drake’s art as “shattered” because it was “conceptualized and created under duress,” referring to his years of servitude.

Baker recalled first meeting Gates a few years ago at the Michigan station of “Hear Me Now” and being struck by “his commitment to Dave.” A few months ago, attorney George Fatheree, who is seeking compensation on behalf of the family, suggested contacting Gates to discuss transferring ownership of the works he owned.

Gates recalled receiving a letter from his father last fall that blamed the situation on reparations, but Gates said his response was simple, something to the effect of, “If you want my pot, I just have to talk to the family.” Gates, who has long been committed to expanding Drake’s work, said he doesn’t think the discussion surrounding reparations and return of Drake ships necessarily applies to him. Gates recalled that he eventually spoke to Baker, who said, “We just want to honor our ancestors.” He responded, “I can help you do that.”

Gates almost immediately decided to return ownership to Drake’s descendants. Gates offered to load it onto a truck and send it over immediately, Baker recalled. “I didn’t expect him to be so generous,” Baker said. “Since then, we’ve had a free and great relationship. Beyond that, we’ve developed our own friendship and he’s like family to us.”

But Gates said he wanted to clarify his reasons for giving the gift. “I’m not giving this gift as some act of shame or some act of restoring justice. I’m very happy that my family can get my gift because they should There is this pot. Reflecting on the decision, Gates added, “I think the pot gave me what it needed — and I didn’t have it in the first place.” “

Hanging on one wall of the Park & ​​75 gallery is a three-page contract, known as the Asset Purchase Agreement, between Gates and the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust LLC, the trust the Gates family established to handle the claims. The document pegs the sale price at $1, to be paid “in cash” by the trust, and describes the transaction as “sold as is.” Gates acknowledged that the legacy of contracts can be tricky, difficult territory when talking about enslaved people, but he saw this as another intervention. “There should be other contracts in this legacy that are optimistic about the future,” he said.

For now, Gates will keep Drake’s pot, for “safekeeping,” as he puts it. But as the new owners, the family now has the final say on whether to sell the boat in the future, with any profits made benefiting them. “Even though I thought I was giving a gift, it still felt like justice in some beautiful way,” he said.

While the terms were being negotiated, Gates was making plans for his next solo show with Gagosian. When he learned he would own the Park & ​​75 space, he knew the Jewel Box Gallery needed a more intimate exhibition than the work he had recently shown. At first, he thought he might just show off the contract between him and his family, but ultimately felt it needed to be “a product to Dave,” he said, adding, “What can I do to make it more than just some catch-in-time transaction mechanism?”

Gates started looking around his studio and noticed several pieces of pottery he was making that he didn’t intend to sell. “The pots also gave me what I needed,” he said, adding that they were part of his experimentation with clay and that together they became “part of the visuals of the studio.” [that] Represents time and labor. “

He decided to crush about 45 of them in a ball mill and mix them with scraps and adhesive from other containers to create new pieces, dave’s base (2026), a gray horizontal cuboid on which Drake’s vessel now rests in the exhibition. Gates sees contrast between minimalist designs Base Drake’s 1855 ship has been called a “modernist ship.”

also Base The contract also includes a selection of three Drake-related pieces that Gates made during his residency at the Kohler Center for the Arts in 2010, as well as a new boat made this year in response to Drake’s work that has a similar color and shape but is 3 feet tall. Gates carved an inscription on it that incorporated Drake’s words: “Where are all my relatives?” His own response was: “Damn Dave, where are all our customers.” Gates saw this as a way to address “the desire for family integrity.”