The first-ever solo show in Japan by Theaster Gates (2012 Awardee), Afro-Mingei imagines the possibilities of combining Black aesthetics and Japanese craft philosophies to create hybrid-culture futures.

Afro-Mingei traces Gates’s deep encounters with ceramic histories in Japan and across the Asia-Pacific, coupled with his experiences as an African-American man with roots in Mississippi and Chicago. Reflecting on the “Black Is Beautiful” movement in the U.S. and the #Mingei movement in Japan, the exhibition celebrates the power of cultural cross-pollination.