Conceiving the Museum, Casa Serralves and the Park as a place of meditation and a cosmology of art and nature, Gates developed a new chapter of what he called "The Black Monastic" that responds to notions and stories of space in diverse racial and political contexts.

Widely illustrated with images of the residency and performances in Serralves, this publication also features unpublished essays by Jacqueline Stewart and Matthew Jesse Jackson, both professors at the University of Chicago.  

Theaster Gates was born in Chicago in 1973, where he currently lives and works. Gates' work has been shown in major museums and galleries around the world. Recent individual exhibitions include:"A Way of Working", The Vera Center for Arts and Politics, New York (2013); "" My Back, My Wheel and My Will", White Cube, São Paulo and Hong Kong (2013); ""Soul Manufacturing Corporation", Locust Projets, Miami (2012); "" My Labour is My Protest", White Cube, London and ""An Epitaph for Human Rights", LA MOCA, Los Angeles (2012). A selection of his most recent group exhibitions include Salon 94, New York ("More Material", 2014), Kunstmuseum Krefeld ("Living in the Material Orange", 2014), Whitechapel Art Gallery ("The Spirit of Utopia", 2013), Art Basel Unlimited, 2013 and Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012). Gates has undertaken projects and residencies at Harvard University, Cambridge (2010), the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010), the Armory and the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (2011).