—Theaster Gates, interviewed by John Colapinto in the New Yorker

‘I’m not really an artist. I’m something else. I’m probably first a hustler.’ When I later asked him to expand on this, he said that he was alluding to the art world as a whole. ‘I’m actually impoicating everyone,’ he said. ‘I’m the hustler who’s just willing to admit this is all a fucking hustle—like, you think that Basel Miami isn’t a fucking hustle? For a hundred and twenty-five square feet we got to pay seventy-five thousand dollars. It’s a five-day real estate!’”