Ground Rules (black line)

2015

Theaster Gates

Artist, American, born 1973

Narrow boards of a wood gymnasium floor were taken apart and reassembled as vertical planks that make up this wide, rectangular panel, which hangs on a wall. Several boards have long strips of black tape and one, near the top right corner, has a band of red tape. Most of the markings are short checks of black, white, red, and green tape. The wood stain is dark in some areas, gray with damage in others, or flaking in places. The two longest horizontal black stripes are near the top left corner and across the right half, about a third of the way down from the top edge of the piece. The room where this hangs has wider planked wood floors and a white wall.
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On View

NGA, East Building, EM-203, W


Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Video:  Orville the Poet Reads His Poem Inspired by Theaster Gates’s “Ground Rules”

Watch Orville the Poet, a Maryland-based spoken word artist, perform his original poem, Between the Lines, in front of the work that inspired it, Theaster Gates’s Ground Rules (black line).


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(White Cube, London); purchased 29 March 2018 by NGA.

Associated Names

Wikidata ID

Q63864450


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