After the first building debuted at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago this month, the Obama Foundation announced that artist Theaster Gates will design an expansive frieze in the Center’s Hadiya Pendleton Atrium that draws from archival photography of Black life. Gates is now one of 25 artists invited to contribute to the Obama Presidential Center designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, slated to open to the public in June 2026.
The Hadiya Pendleton Atrium is named for a student who performed in President Obama’s inauguration parade that was tragically killed from gun violence a week later. The frieze by Gates located in the atrium will stand as a “symbol of community, strength, and civic action,” the foundation said.
The frieze will extend over 175 feet. Gates will pull from photographic imagery he has sourced since 2016 from the Johnson Publishing Company Archives and photographer Howard Simmons, an artist known for his photography in publications like Ebony and Jet. Gates will take these images and apply them onto an industrial aluminum material.
“This opportunity moves me to bring forward the photographic legacies that capture moments of great strength and elegance from the Johnson Publishing Company archive—images by Moneta Sleet, Jr. and Isaac Sutton—and the personal archive of photographer Howard Simmons,” the Chicago artist said.
Julie Mehretu, a world-renowned Ethiopian-American artist and activist, has designed a large stained glass artwork for the exterior of the Obama Presidential Center: Uprising of the Sun measures 83 by 25 feet and appears on the north facade of the highly anticipated building.
Other artists in addition to Gates and Mehretu invited to contribute to the Obama Presidential Center include Maya Lin, Nick Cave, Nekisha Durrett, Jenny Holzer, Jules Julien, Kiki Smith, and others.
→ Continue reading at The Architect's Newspaper
