The Obama Foundation has tapped a local talent with its latest commission for its highly anticipated Obama Presidential Center (OPC), set to open on Chicago’s South Side in 2026. Artist Theaster Gates will create an expansive frieze drawing drawing from the Johnson Publishing Company image archive and the Howard Simmon and photographic collections.
The new installation will occupy the Pendleton Atrium at the forthcoming OPC and celebrate the visual archives of the Chicago legacy magazines Ebony and Jet, both longtime sources of inspiration in Gates’s artistic practice.
“I am deeply honored to be commissioned to create a new artwork for the Obama Presidential Center, a beacon of democracy, just a couple of blocks from where my non-profit, Rebuild Foundation has invested in land and cultural assets as tools for creative self-determination for over two decades,” Gates said in a statement, referring to the organization he founded on Chicago’s South Side in 2009.
Rebuild Foundation has led a broader cultural revitalization of the city’s predominantly Black neighborhoods, restoring historic buildings and establishing institutions such as the Stony Island Arts Bank, which functions as both the foundation’s headquarters and an exhibition and events space, as well as an occasional food repository. Through this work, Rebuild has created opportunities to engage with Chicago’s artistic legacies, including Johnson Publishing Company (publisher of Ebony and Jet) and the photography of Chicago-based artist Howard Simmons.
“My hope is to ground the power of these visual histories in a new context, reminding us of the collective resolve that shapes our communities,” Gates said, adding that, “At a time when artists are increasingly playing a critical role in protecting memory and in contributing to the democratic ideals that continue to shape who we are and what we strive to become, it is deeply meaningful to contribute to this historic space.”
In a statement, Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett said, “I’ve known Theaster since his days as the first transit arts planner for the Chicago Transit Authority 25 years ago, and he is the ideal artist for this marquee space. His boundless creativity, commitment to public art, passion for educating and sharing art with others, and gift for translating history into the present make him a singular talent. People from around the world will be awestruck by his work—but just as importantly, those of us from the South Side will see our community continue to be elevated to the world-class status it has always deserved.”
In September, the Obama Presidential Center announced nine new commissions by 10 artists to be scattered across its 19.3-acre campus, six of which are planned for the OPC’s Museum building, which stands eight stories tall in Jackson Park. These commissions include a text-based sculpture, spelling out “HOPE,” by Jack Pierson for its entry pavilion; a bronze sculpture, titled Receive, by Kiki Smith, set for the building’s Hope & Change lobby; and a digital mural consisting of 11 illustrations by Jules Julien will decorate the fifth floor’s Civics Gallery.
Additionally, Nick Cave and Marie Watt will collaborate on a textile-and-sound installation for the main lobby. Titled This Land, Shared Sky, the work will entail beaded nets and sculptural jingle elements that fuse “Indigenous and Black traditions in a celebration of movement, sound, and shared resilience,” according to the center.
Jenny Holzer will create a text-based piece that draws from the FBI’s files on the Freedom Riders, while Idris Khan’s Sky of Hope will see thousands of hand-stamped words, drawn from President Barack Obama’s 2015 speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches, installed on the ceiling and radiating out from the skylight.
Gates’s installation, along with these works, joins five other commissions by artists Lindsay Adams, Spencer Finch, Richard Hunt, Maya Lin, and Julie Mehretu that have been previously announced, bring the total number of site-specific artist commissions that will ultimately be scattered across the OPC campus to 25.
“Each of these commissions is a meditation on civic life,” Louise Bernard, the founding director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum, previously said in a statement. “From the intimacy of painting to the scale of public sculpture, these works speak to themes at the heart of the Center: resilience, memory, identity, and hope. Together, they create a deeply textured cultural landscape that reflects our past, animates the present, and gestures toward the future.”
