Theaster Gates: When Clouds Roll Away

Once the largest African American–owned public enterprise in the United
States, Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company, producer of Ebony and
Jet magazines, documented and helped define the postwar Black experience.
It transformed print journalism through articles that celebrated Black
achievement, beauty, and culture until the changing media landscape forced
it to sell its assets and iconic building in 2011. Since then, the Rebuild
Foundation, a cultural platform established by Theaster Gates, has been the
steward of JPC’s legacy, including its furniture, prestigious art collection,
and twelve-thousand-volume library.
The company’s cultural artifacts—which have long served as material and
inspiration for Gates’s own work—are the subject of an exhibition that
features newly restored objects, vintage furniture, and works by him and
other artists, among them Barkley Hendricks, Kerry James Marshall, and
several of JPC’s staff photographers.

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