12 Ballads for Huguenot House

In his 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, Theaster Gates chronicles his ambitious project to unite two disused buildings – one in Chicago and the other in Kassel, Germany – by dismantling parts of each to reuse in the rebuilding of the other.The forgotten and dilapidated Huguenot House, built during the early nineteenth century in Kassel, attracted the attention of Gates, as he would associate the histories of the migrant workers who built it so many years ago with that of black and Hispanic builders in his own neighbourhood in Chicago today. Meanwhile, across the ocean, Gates eyed a large, decaying building in Chicago, whose architectural details have remained intact.Gates envisioned an exchange and ultimately proposed to bring materials from the Chicago building to renovate the Huguenot House. The process will also be reversed: materials from the Huguenot House will later be reused to reconstruct the building in Chicago. In the pages of this book, Gates documents his plans for the exchange, and all of its elaborate and complex sociopolitical and historical detail, in twelve thematic 'ballads'. With illustrated work notes by the artist.Published on the occasion of dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, 9 June – 16 September 2012.