Located in the Forum Building’s public atrium—named for Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old Chicago student who marched in President Obama’s second inauguration parade and was tragically killed a week later due to gun violence—the space stands as a symbol of community, strength, and civic action. Gates’s installation reflects on the power of collective resilience and honors the everyday individuals whose lives and practices sustain and enshrine movements for justice and change. The Forum Building will serve as a place to welcome the local community, largely built into the landscape of Jackson Park, and will feature the Elie Wiesel Auditorium and a restaurant, along with a Media Suite, Democracy in Action Lab (DIAL) Program Rooms, and staff offices.

Drawing from photographic imagery sourced from the Johnson Publishing Company Archives, an archive that Gates has mined and honored through his artistic practice for over a decade, and the personal archive of prolific image-maker Howard Simmons, once a staff photographer for Johnson Publishing Company, Gates celebrates the power and intimacy of Black life as captured in the pages of Ebony and Jet, magazines that helped define the visual and cultural language of the 20th century. Rendering the images on an industrial aluminum material, with crowds and Black women at the forefront, the installation (extending over 175’) honors the collective labor, energy, care, and collaboration that continue to create a movement.

In 2016, Gates began archiving and working with 20,000 photographs from the Johnson Publishing Archives, ensuring that this vital visual record of Black cultural heritage could continue to produce new value and would remain a source of creative and entrepreneurial inspiration for the South Side community. His stewardship of these archives reflects his broader mission to preserve and reimagine historical records through art, architecture, and civic space, aligning closely with the Obama Presidential Center’s commitment to empowerment and community building on Chicago’s South Side.

Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of more than 25 artists who will have site-specific pieces on display at the Obama Presidential Center once open.

• This year, twelve visionary artists – Lindsay Adams, Nick Cave, Nekisha Durrett, Spencer Finch, Jenny Holzer, Jules Julien, Idris Khan, Aliza Nisenbaum, Jack Pierson, Alison Saar, Kiki Smith, and Marie Watt – joined the Obama Presidential Center’s historic campus-wide art program.
• Last fall, crews installed Julie Mehretu’s 83-foot-high abstract painted glass window in the Museum Building, which is visible now to visitors of Jackson Park.
• The Foundation also previously unveiled plans for “Book Bird,” a sculpture by celebrated Chicago artist Richard Hunt, which will reside in the Rachel Carson Courtyard of the Center’s Chicago Public Library branch.
• Additionally, acclaimed artist and architect Maya Lin – renowned for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. – will design a sculptural water feature for the Center’s water terrace, dedicated to President Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham.

The Obama Presidential Center is slated to open in 2026. With the arts as a central part of its core, the Center will stand as a beacon of hope, storytelling, and public possibility, connecting visitors across generations through creativity, civic action, and shared humanity.

From its inception, the Obama Presidential Center envisioned the arts as core to its mission. This commitment builds upon the legacy that President and Mrs. Obama instilled at the White House, making it the “People’s House” by opening its doors to diverse voices, disciplines, and perspectives. The commissioned art collection at the Center will carry this ethos forward, amplifying its impact through vibrant public arts programming that brings the collection to life in dynamic and accessible ways. Through performances, workshops, and talks, this programming will engage the public, inspire creativity, and spark meaningful dialogue—ensuring that the collection remains at the heart of the visitor experience and a catalyst for community connection.

The artist commissions are curated by Virginia Shore, Shore Art Advisory LLC, Curator of the Obama Presidential Center Art Commissions.

Theaster Gates (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) is an artist whose work engages with the creative recirculation of art world capital and reconsiders the socially prescribed value of Black space and everyday materials through urban planning, cultural preservation, and collective imagination. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, and land art, Gates brings together art and civic engagement to explore how history, labor, and spirituality shape Black experience and possibility. 

Foundational to Gates’s practice is his custodianship and critical redeployment of culturally significant objects, archives, and places. Rooted in Chicago’s South Side, his nonprofit artistic project, Rebuild Foundation, has turned vacant buildings into vibrant cultural hubs, including the Stony Island Arts Bank, The Land School, Kenwood Gardens, Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative, the 6 Flat, and Archive House and Listening House. Each project serves as a living artwork that fosters experimental artistic practice, creative entrepreneurship, access, education, and economic vitality while preserving Black cultural heritage.

His work has presented in solo exhibitions internationally at institutions including The LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2023, 2024); The New Museum, New York, (2022); The Aichi Triennial, Tokoname (2022); The Serpentine Pavilion Commission, London (2022); The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2021); Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Palais de Tokyo Paris, France (2019); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2018); National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA (2017); Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2016); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012), and numerous other major exhibitions.

Gates is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2025); Isamu Noguchi Award (2023); National Buildings Museum Vincent Scully Prize (2023); Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts (2022); an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects (2021); the World Economic Forum Crystal Award (2020); J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development (2018); Nasher Sculpture Prize (2018); Sprengel Museum Kurt Schwitters Prize (2017); and Artes Mundi 6 Prize (2015). Gates is also a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts and the College.

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Source: The Obama Foundation