Activity: Assemblage
4. Theaster Gates (b. 1973)
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While Theaster Gates’s piece reads like a painting and can also be considered sculpture, another method of art making with found materials is called assemblage. An assemblage is a three-dimensional collage of layered materials. Create an assemblage using materials found inside your home. Consider what you want your artwork to convey about your life, family, or home. Assemble your materials on a board, canvas, or painted piece of cardboard. Take a photograph of your work and share it with museumeducation@oscars.org.
Some Remember Sock Hops, Others Remember Riots , 2020 Wood, denim, and fire hose
Reflect
• Take some time to look closely at the materials used to make this artwork. What are some things you notice? • Does this object/format remind you of anything?
Information
The strips of decommissioned fire hose covering the surface of this work reference the high-pressure water jets that police employed to attack people—including children—during nonviolent protests against segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. Using the aesthetics of abstract and minimalist painting, Gates also creates a dialogue between the history of art making and the record of racial injustice in this country. The title comments on the stark racial disparities of the civil rights era: while Black protesters were being assaulted, white people were dancing shoeless to avoid scuffing school gymnasium floors. Denim, a fabric associated with both the working class and the COUNTERCULTURE, here pays homage to the overalls worn by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the main channel of student involvement in civil rights actions.
Explore: Group discussion
• How is this piece like an abstract painting? What sets it apart from a painting? • How do materials make meaning? What do you think the materials in this piece mean to the artist? What do they mean to you? • Without knowing Gates’s intention, this work can be interpreted very differently. How does knowledge of his choice of materials add layers of meaning and complexity to the artwork?
Theaster Gates, Some Remember Sock Hops, Others Remember Riots , 2020
*Words set in ALL CAPS are defined in the Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts (section F of this guide). Curriculum Text and Guide © 2022 Academy Museum Foundation. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License and is not intended for commercial use.
*Words set in ALL CAPS are defined in the Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts (section F of this guide).
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