My Favorite Artwork | Theaster Gates

My name is Theaster Gates. I’m a contemporary artist. I want to talk about this amazing tea bowl made by Shiro Tsujimura. The first time I saw Tsujimura’s work was in a small gallery in Kyoto. I decided that I would go find him and visit him. And we started to walk around the hill where his studio was. I was just struck by the fact that these works were out in nature aging. He had works that had probably been outside for 30 years. And I remember just talking to him about, at 76 years old, why he felt so compelled to continue to make ceramics. And he talked beautifully about practicing at a Zen temple when he was 16, 17. The abbot said, “Choose one thing, and do it very, very well.” And I think that in my contemporary practice, this kind of sage wisdom feels very, very important to me. [CLICKS]