Stony Island Arts Bank will launch during the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial

Theaster Gates bought the former bank for $1 in 2013

The artist Theaster Gates plans to open a major new cultural venue in a 1920s building, formerly a bank, on Chicago’s South Side during the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (3 October-3 January 2016). The Stony Island Arts Bank will “offer both an international platform for contemporary art and a cultural space for the local community”, the organisers of the biennial say. The City of Chicago sold the site to Gates for $1 in 2013 and the space has been refurbished by the artist’s non-profit Rebuild Foundation.