Glorious Robe

Since its establishment in the Nishijin district of Kyoto in 1688, Hosoo has been dedicated to pioneering advancements in textile production, while firmly anchored in the time-honored practices of traditional dyeing and weaving. Gates and Hosoo have collaborated extensively on a number of creative projects that privilege textiles and garments as artistic practice, beginning with Gates’s 2024 solo exhibition Afro Mingei at the Mori Art Museum. The exhibition, entitled Glorious Robe, showcases the latest body of work that emerged from these dialogues.

The novel forms of clothes in this exhibition, born from the distinct lineages of African and Japanese sartorial cultures, express the “power to move society” that grounds Gates’ practice—from honoring craft cultures to exalting culturally significant archives.

At the core of this project lies Dashikimono, a garment derived from two distinct cultural lineages: the traditional African attire dashiki and the Japanese kimono. The dashiki has its origins in West Africa, where it was historically worn as a symbol of ethnic and community identity. During the 1960s, it became a widely adopted symbol of the Black Power movement in the United States. The kimono, for its part, is a manifestation of Japanese folklore, having been crafted by people ever since the beginning of history, as well as a symbol of the craft culture associated with dyeing and weaving.

The ceramic vessel constitutes another recurring and fundamental form in Gates’s extensive body of work. In much the same way as clothing, pottery is not merely a utilitarian object. Instead, it is imbued with profound significance as a receptacle for history, culture, philosophy, convening and the human spirit. In this exhibition, through attire and the vessel primarily, the body becomes a metaphor for the reweaving of a community’s culture and history through the generational histories of ceremony, craft and ritual.

The exhibition features another important body of work, a series of obi with the history of the Black Liberation Movement woven into them. Dedicated to the memories of the prominent Civil Rights leaders, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, the sashes are emblazoned with the iconic fist emblem and the year of their murders. The work utilizes the obi, a traditional component of Japanese attire, as a medium for collective memory and commemoration.

First shown at Gates’ 2025 White Cube Bermondsey exhibition 1965: Malcolm in Winter: A Translation Exercise, these works were developed based on an important archive of Malcolm X materials written and compiled by journalist and translator Ei Nagata and his partner, Haruhi Ishitani. After personally witnessing Malcolm X’s assassination on February 21, 1965, the couple dedicated their efforts to raising awareness of the Black Liberation Movement in Japan by publishing translations and biographies of and about the civil rights activist. Following Nagata’s death, Ishitani dedicated herself to preserving his research materials and putting them to the best possible use.

Inspired by her dedication, Gates began to ask new questions about how art and aesthetics could shape political, ideological, and cultural heritage. Through his own artistic practice, he continues to explore ways to breathe new life into this archive. The Obi and Dashikimono are two series created within that context. The obi designs draw from Hosoo’s archive of about 20,000 patterns. Also on view at the venue is Gates’s new work Vessel, featuring a ceramic piece he created and wrapped in a shifuku (tea caddy cover)-like fabric, along with recreations of Banner and Kimono, presented as they were originally shown at the Mori Art Museum Afro Mingei exhibition (2024) that triggered the collaboration with Hosoo. This exhibition thus offers a multifaceted, cross-disciplinary experience, incorporating recordings of performances of gospel music by Tsugaru shamisen player Yutaka Koyama and recitations by Haruhi Ishitani, both recorded in 2025.

Gates has consistently engaged in dialogue with history through his unique approach of finding renewed life within the archive. This exhibition presents craft practices such as obi and kimonos born from the collaboration between Gates and Hosoo as receptacles of spirit in an archival inquiry, exploring the role clothes—and by extension, ritual and ceremony—can play in shaping a practical movement within society.