White Cube Seoul will present 'African Still Life', the first solo exhibition in Seoul by artist, archivist and curator Theaster Gates, from 4 November to 18 December 2026. The show introduces a new body of sculptural ceramic paintings, and uses the conventions of still life as a shared point of departure for questions about objects, sound and self-portraiture.

At the centre of the exhibition is the titular work African Still Life #4, made in 2026. It gathers a scholar's stone, an antique brass shoe-shine stand, a memorial flag and a pair of custom roller skates designed by the artist in 2023, which combine split-toed tabi footwear with Chicago Black roller-skating traditions. Arranged as a constellation of contemporary and historical elements, the work recalls the structure of an altar, paying homage to an ancestral world in which objects can stand in for people, places and moments in time.

Elsewhere in the gallery, a series of new wall-mounted ceramic works extends Gates's exploration of still life through material and form. Composed of geometric shapes, they build what the artist describes as a basic visual language for approaching still life as an advanced strategy for drawing. Their elemental forms also recall fundamental Buddhist symbols such as mandalas and stupas, in which geometry organises sacred and cosmological space. For Gates, the firing process is part of the meaning: once a work has been through the kiln, everything organic is gone and what remains is fossil-like, given a new life through glazing and a second firing.

The Seoul show opens alongside a second Gates presentation in Asia: 'Theaster Gates: Surrogate' runs at Gagosian in Hong Kong from 19 November 2026 to 27 February 2027. Together, the two exhibitions give audiences in the region a chance to see how Gates continues to move between sculpture, ceramics, archives and social practice, treating everyday and inherited objects as carriers of memory and identity.