Charles Gaines (born 1944) is an American artist whose work interrogates the discourse of

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

, politics, and philosophy. Taking the form of

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

s, photographic series and video installations, the work consistently involves the use of systems, predominantly in the form of the grid, often in combination with photography. His work is rooted in

Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

– in dialogue with artists such as

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word a ...

and

Mel Bochner Mel Bochner (born 1940) is an American conceptual artist. Bochner received his BFA in 1962 and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 2005 from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives in New York City. Life Bochner was born in Pittsb ...

– and Gaines is committed to its tenets of engaging cognition and language. As one of the only

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

conceptual artists working in the 1970s, a time when political expressionism was a prevailing concern among African-American artists, Gaines was an outlier in his pursuit of abstraction and non-didactic approach to race and politics. There is a strong musical thread running through much of Gaines' work, evident in his repeated use of musical scores as well in his engagement with the idea of indeterminacy, as similar to

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

and

Early life and education

Gaines was born in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...

. Raised in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Newark Arts High School Newark Arts High School is a four-year magnet public high school, serving students in Ninth through twelfth grades in Newark, in Essex County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Newark Public Schools. The school is located in t ...

and received a BA from

Jersey City State College New Jersey City University (NJCU) is a public university in Jersey City, New Jersey. Originally chartered in 1927, and known as Jersey City State College for 40 years of its history, New Jersey City University consists of the School of Business, ...

in 1966. He earned his MFA in 1967 as the first African American to be accepted into the MFA program at the School of Art and Design at the

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in the town of Henrietta, New York, Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degree ...

. From 1967 to 1990 he was a professor of art at

California State University Fresno California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...

. Since 1989, he has been a faculty member at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

, influencing many young artists who studied with him, among them

Edgar Arceneaux Edgar Arceneaux (born 1972, in Los Angeles) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He is the co-founder of the Watts House Project, a non-profit neighborhood redevelopment organization in Watts. Career Arceneau ...

Rodney McMillian Rodney McMillian (born 1969, in Columbia, South Carolina) is an artist based in Los Angeles. McMillian is a Professor of Sculpture at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles. McMillian holds a BA in ...

Andrea Bowers Andrea Bowers (born 1965) is a Los Angeles-based American artist working in a variety of media including video, drawing, and installation. Her work has been exhibited around the world, including museums and galleries in Germany, Greece, and To ...

Mark Bradford Mark Bradford (born November 20, 1961) is an American visual artist. Born in Los Angeles, Bradford studied at the California Institute of the Arts. Recognized for his collaged painting works, which have been shown internationally, his practice al ...

Sam Durant Sam Durant (born 1961, in Seattle) is a multimedia artist whose works engage social, political, and cultural issues. Often referencing American history, his work explores culture and politics, engaging subjects such as the civil rights movement, ...

, and

Laura Owens Laura Owens (born 1970) is an American painter, gallery owner and educator. She emerged in the late 1990s from the Los Angeles art scene. She is known for large-scale paintings that combine a variety of art historical references and painterly te ...

. In 2008 Gaines taught at the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 t ...

. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Career

In ''Motion: Trisha Brown Dance'' (1981), Gaines photographed postmodern dancer

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers ...

performing the piece ''Son of Gone Fishin. Numbering the spaces in a grid that correspond with the body in motion, and overlaying another grid drawing for each image in the series, Gaines seeks to transcribe the moving body in a way that the photograph cannot. In doing so, he also creates an erasure of the body's distinguishing contours – aligning with Trisha Brown's embrace of structures that obscure themselves. With the series ''Walnut Tree Orchard'', Charles Gaines started working with photographs in his artworks in addition to mathematical formulas, continuing the use of grid paper. *''Explosions'' *''History of Stars'' *''NIGHT/CRIMES'' *''Shadows'' *''Walnut Tree Orchard'' (1975-2014) *''String Theory'' *''Manifestos'' *''Sound Text'' (2015) In addition to working on his art, Gaines has been serving on the advisory board of the Hauser & Wirth Institute since 2018.

Exhibitions

After his first New York City exhibition at Cinque Gallery in 1972, Charles Gaines was included in the 1975

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

in New York City. In the 1980s, Charles Gaines was represented by and had solo exhibitions at

Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...

Gallery and John Weber Gallery in New York. He has shown at

Margo Leavin Margo Leavin (1936–2021) was an American art dealer. She was born in New York, but spent her career in Los Angeles. In 1970, she opened the Margo Leavin Gallery in West Hollywood, CA, which she operated until it closed in 2013. Career and reput ...

Gallery in Los Angeles, Young Hoffman in Chicago, Richard Heller Gallery in San Francisco, and Galerie Lavignes-Bastille in Paris, among others. In 2006 Gaines began to exhibit with

Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Vielmetter Los Angeles (formerly Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2000 by Susanne Vielmetter. The gallery is located in downtown Los Angeles. History Susanne Vielmetter launched her first gallery i ...

, and in 2014 with

Paula Cooper Gallery The Paula Cooper Gallery is an art gallery in New York City, founded in 1968 by . History Predecessors Cooper ran her own space, the ''Paula Johnson Gallery'', from 1964 to 1966, where Walter De Maria launched his first solo show in New York. ...

, New York. Most recently, he was included in 56th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, curated by

Okwui Enwezor Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the ''ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...

in 2015. His work has been included in other major group exhibitions, including the 2007 Venice Biennale, "Blues for Smoke" (

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

, 2012) and ''Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960 – 1980'', curated by

Kellie Jones Kellie Jones (born 1959) is an American art historian and curator. She is a Professor in Art History and Archaeology in African American Studies at Columbia University. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. Biography Jones is the daughter of ...

at the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

and ''Under the Big Black Sun: 1974–1981'', at the

which was curated by

Paul Schimmel Paul Reinhard Schimmel (born August 4, 1940) is an American biophysical chemist and translational medicine pioneer. Career Paul Schimmel is a Professor of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute. Prior to joining The Scripps Resear ...

as part of the 2011 Getty's

Pacific Standard Time The Pacific Time Zone (PT) is a time zone encompassing parts of western Canada, the western United States, and western Mexico. Places in this zone observe standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC−08:00). ...

initiative, Gaines was featured in two prominent Los Angeles exhibitions: In 2012 the

Pomona College Museum of Art The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, known colloquially as the Benton, is an art museum at Pomona College in Claremont, California. It was completed in 2020, replacing the Montgomery Art Gallery which had been home to the Pomona College ...

and the

Pitzer Pitzer is a surname, and may refer to: *Alexander White Pitzer (1834–1927), American Presbyterian clergyman *Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer (1914–1997), American theoretical chemist *Russell Kelly Pitzer (1878–1978), American businessman and philanth ...

Art Gallery in Claremont, CA, exhibited ''In The Shadow of Numbers, Charles Gaines Selected Works from 1975 to 2012'' which involved a collaborative musical performance with

Terry Adkins Terry Roger Adkins (May 9, 1953 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist. He was Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Early life Adkins was born in Washington, D.C., on May 9, 1953, into a mus ...

. ''Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974–1999'', the artist's first survey exhibition, was organized by

The Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

in July 2014. In 2019 the

SculptureCenter SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit, contemporary art museum located in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. It was founded in 1928 as "The Clay Club" by Dorothea Denslow. In 2013, SculptureCentre attracted around 13,000 visitors. History Fou ...

, Queens, New York, exhibited ''Searching the Sky for Rain f''rom September 16, 2019 – December 16, 2019 which is a collaboration of many artist such as Carmen Argote, Tony Cokes, Rafael Domenech, Mandy El-Sayegh, ektor garcia, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon, Tishan Hsu, Rindon Johnson, Becket MWN, Shahryar Nashat, Michael Queenland, Johanna Unzueta, Jala Wahid, Eric Wesley, Riet Wijnen and Charles Gaines included. The ''Searching the Sky for Rain'' exhibit has only two of his works within them. The one placed in the ground floor was the “''Numbers and Trees: Central Park Series II: Tree #7''" (made in 2016) Laurel and the second placed in the lower level being "''Face 1: Identity Politics, #10, Edward Said''" (made in 2018).

Awards

Gaines received a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

(NEA) Grant in 1977. He received a

California Community Foundation The California Community Foundation (CCF) is a philanthropic organization located in Los Angeles, California. Foundation Center, an independent nonprofit organization, ranks it among the top 100 foundations in the nation by asset size and total ...

(CCF) in 2011, and a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2013. Gaines received the CalArts REDCAT Award in 2018 and was awarded the 60th annual

Edward MacDowell Medal The Edward MacDowell Medal is an award which has been given since 1960 to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. It is given by MacDowell, the first artist residency program in the United Sta ...

in 2019.

Writing

Gaines has written a number of academic texts including: ''Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism'' (

UC Irvine UC may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''University Challenge'', a popular British quiz programme airing on BBC Two ** '' University Challenge (New Zealand)'', the New Zealand version of the British programme * Universal Century, one of the ti ...

, 1993); ''Art, Post History and the Paradox of Black Pluralism,'' ''Merge'', 12 (2004); "Reconsidering Metaphor/Metonymy: Art and the Suppression of Thought", ''Art Lies'', Issue 64 (Winter/2009); "Ben Patterson: The History of Gray Matter From the

Avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

to the

Postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

", a catalog essay for an exhibition at the

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

(November 2010); and

Kerry James Marshall Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall ...

, London:

Phaidon Press Phaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional off ...

, 2017.

Solo exhibitions

2022 Gridwork: Palm Canyon Watercolors

Galerie Max Hetzler Galerie Max Hetzler is a gallery for contemporary art with locations in Berlin, Paris and London. History The Galerie Max Hetzler was founded in Stuttgart in 1974. In 1981, the gallery presented the first exhibitions of Martin Kippenberger and Al ...

, Paris 2021 New Work: Charles Gaines

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, San Francisco Dia Beacon, Beacon Multiples of Nature, Trees and Faces

Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery. History Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth, and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by co-president Marc Payot. In 2020, Ewan Venters was ap ...

, London 2022 Drawings,

, St. Moritz 2019 Palm Trees and Other Works,

, Los Angeles 2018

, Berlin Faces 1: Identity Politics,

, New York

Group Exhibitions

2022 Forest Through the Trees, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis Lifes, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (catalogue) 2021 Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, New Museum, New York (catalogue) Kathmandu Triennial, Kathmandu Blood, Sweat, and Tears, UMLAUF Sculpture Garden and Museum, Austin Lives that Bind: a restorative justice installation, Santa Monica City Hall East, Santa Monica 2020 Lives that Bind: a restorative justice installation City Services Building Art Bank, Santa Monica Drawing 2020 Gladstone Gallery, New York To Form a More Perfect Union Hauser & Wirth, New York Artists for New York Hauser & Wirth, New York Garden of Six Seasons Para Site, Hong Kong 2019 Words, Alexander Berggruen, New York Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Searching the Sky for Rain, SculptureCenter, New York Process and Pattern, Wisch Family Gallery, Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Stanford Trees, Fondation Cartier pour l´art contemporain, Paris The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley California Artists in the Marciano Collection, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles Mapping Black Identities, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago

Selected Public Collections

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, Chicago

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent coll ...

, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

, Baltimore

, Los Angeles, California

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

, Washington DC Lentos Museum, Linz Marciano Collection, Los Angeles

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

, Chicago

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

, Minneapolis, MN ("Explosion #25", 2008)

Art market

Gaines is represented by

(since 2018) and

. He previously worked with

and

Vielmetter Los Angeles Vielmetter Los Angeles (formerly Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2000 by Susanne Vielmetter. The gallery is located in downtown Los Angeles. History Susanne Vielmetter launched her first gallery i ...

.Andy Battaglia (August 11, 2018)
Charles Gaines Is Now Represented by Hauser & Wirth
''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countri ...

''.

References

External links

* Miranda, Carolina A.
"How the dense grids of artist Charles Gaines took the ego out of art"
''Los Angeles Times'', March 3, 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gaines, Charles 1944 births Living people African-American artists California Institute of the Arts faculty Artists from Charleston, South Carolina Artists from Newark, New Jersey Newark Arts High School alumni Rochester Institute of Technology alumni 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people