Image of St. Paul artist-in-residence Marcus Young recording his reflections on the presentation of Theaster Gates. You can find Marcus' work here [photo by Brit Salmela].
If you view the video recordings of the Bruner/Loeb Forum, be sure to watch the presentation of artist Theaster Gates. In addition to being a compelling visual artist, Theaster is a gifted lecturer, singer, and community builder.
In this video you can see him working with elementary school kids in St. Louis to identify the assets in their neighborhoods. You can also see some of his sculpture, and see him perform. Theaster is one of the most talented, committed, approachable, humble and sincere people you will ever meet. We talked about how when he started, noone wanted to give him any money to do his work and now its a completely different story. I'm particularly excited about a project he is starting in St. Louis that will combine artist housing with housing for families who have an interest in the arts. His goal is to house artists and families from the community where the housing units are placed - not to bring in artists from other parts of the city. Locally rooted art and design at its best. Theaster will be back in the Twin Cities this fall through the Walker Art Center. We hope we can entice him up to Juxtaposition for a presentation to our and Juxta's students.
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