Theaster Gates: Hold Me, Hold Me, Hold Me

White Cube New York presents ‘Hold Me, Hold Me, Hold Me’, a solo exhibition by Theaster Gates, in which the artist creates a series of material pairings – across painting, sculpture and archival installation – indicative of musical harmonic devices. Shifting the ideology of art from visually based to metronomic, Gates explores how sound holds pain and suffering, joy, temporality, memory and contingency.

Engaging with the history of built environments, craftsmanship and music, Gates transforms the gallery space into a tableau of personal and collective memory – an immersive homage to community. With music serving as a through line in Gates’s practice, the exhibition’s title honours the 1970s duet ‘Be Real Black For Me’ by librettists Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack. Drawing from an evocative, emotional crescendo midway through the song – marked by the echoed repetition of the phrase ‘hold me’ – Gates explores the connections between music, composition and the complex interactions between artistry and mental health, acknowledging the truth of Hathaway’s own profound struggles with fame and creative transmission during his lifetime.