serpentine pavilion's first non-architect theaster gates opens 'black chapel'

the 21st serpentine pavilion: black chapel

The 21st Serpentine Pavilion dubbed Black Chapel, designed by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates opens this Friday June 10th, 2022. Black Chapel is realized with the architectural support of Adjaye Associates with Goldman Sachs supporting the annual project for the eighth consecutive year. Conceived as a space for gathering, meditation and participation, with an emphasis on sacred music, Black Chapel becomes a platform for Serpentine’s live program throughout the summer and beyond, offering reflection, connection and joy to the public. See designboom’s previous coverage here.

image by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine

theaster gates draws from universal forms

The latest Serpentine Pavilion (see here), dubbed Black Chapel, draws inspiration from many of the architectural typologies that ground the practice of Theaster Gates (see more here). The structure references the bottle kilns of Stoke-on-Trent in England, the beehive kilns of the Western United States, San Pietro and the Roman tempiettos and traditional African building structures such as the Musgum mud huts of Cameroon and the Kasabi Tombs of Kampala, Uganda.

Drawn to the transcendental environment of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, Gates has produced a series of new tar paintings especially for Black Chapel. Determined to create a space that reflects the artist’s hand and sensibilities, seven panels hang from the interior structure. In these works, Gates honors his father’s craft as a roofer and uses roofing strategies and torch down, which requires an open flame to heat the material and affix it to the surface.

image by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine

a call to congregation

An operating bronze bell, salvaged from St. Laurence, a landmark Catholic Church that once stood in Chicago’s South Side, stands next to the entrance of Theaster Gates’ Serpentine Pavilion. Underscoring the erasure of spaces for convening and spiritual communion in urban communities, the historic bell acts as a call to assembly, congregation and contemplation throughout the summer’s events.

Theaster Gates comments: ‘The name Black Chapel is important because it reflects the invisible parts of my artistic practice. It acknowledges the role that sacred music and the sacred arts have had on my practice, and the collective quality of these emotional and communal initiatives.

‘Black Chapel also suggests that in these times there could be a space where one could rest from the pressures of the day and spend time in quietude. I have always wanted to build spaces that consider the power of sound and music as a healing mechanism and emotive force that allows people to enter a space of deep reflection and deep participation.’

image by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine
image by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine
image by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine