Theaster Gates, The Black Monks of Mississippi

Afro-Mingei is a live performance by Theaster Gates and The Black Monks of Mississippi, here credited as The Black Monks. It was recorded at White Cube in Mason's Yard, London, on Friday 24 May 2019. That was the opening day of Afro-Mingei, the exhibition in which Gates brought together two strands of his work, Japanese philosophy and Black identity, until 22 June. The title joins two histories. 'Afro' points both to African-American culture and to the hairstyle reclaimed in the 1960s and 1970s as a sign of Black identity and empowerment. Mingei is the term coined by the philosopher Soetsu Yanagi with the potters Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai for folk objects made by unknown craftsmen. In the galleries, sakazuki cups and tatami sat alongside African masks and a Hammond B3 organ, the instrument of jazz, soul and gospel. The record is the fourth on Black Madonna Press, Gates's label with The Vinyl Factory.

On this occasion the Monks were a trio around Gates: Yaw Agyeman, Mikel Patrick Avery and Michael Drayton. Agyeman usually sings with the group and Avery plays drums. The whole performance sits on a single side, with the B-side given over to an etching of the Afro-Mingei artwork. A Vinyl Factory feature of 2020 heard the group as a free jazz and dub poetry band at times. At others they suggested abstract electronic soul musicians reciting folk tales, and often both at once. Gates, a church choir director at fourteen, sees the Monks as a return to gospel form by way of conceptual art. In remarks from the stage, printed by the label, he refused to separate his pottery, sculpture and singing: "there is no difference between one ability and another. It's just a set of gifts" (The Vinyl Factory, 2020). The Monks rarely play in music venues. They respond instead to the objects and histories of the rooms they are invited into, which here meant a show about craft, hybridity and what Gates calls 'Western-White sameness'.

Single-sided 12" on 180-gram black vinyl in a limited edition, with the Afro-Mingei artwork etched into the B-side. The blind-embossed outer sleeve is printed on Perfect Image black, and the inner sleeve shows Gates's neon Storefront Sign (2018).