Charles Gaines Studio

emajendat at The Hollywood Bowl on September 29! Grab tickets airbody 🐬👽💿💎 im reimagining the campus from entrance to exit AND making a sculptural stage for Erykah Badu w/ DJ Pee .Wee (aka Anderson Paak) n The Charles Gaines Collective featuring Black Nile 💿 hair art by tha wonderful @jottak_ wait til ya see what me n jotta have in store next 💅🏾🫶🏾 see u at the bowl ✨ #highvoltageFunkateer #hollywoodbowl #hardcoreFunk @erykahbadu @_blacknile @charlesgainesstudio @djpee.wee @hollywoodbowl

In this episode, FQT director Che Gossett speaks with Charles Gaines about his artistic practice, his interest in systems thinking and unthinking, and how Gaines investigates seriality and discreteness, difference and repetition in relation to race, materiality and infrastructure. They discuss Gaines’s pathbreaking 1993 exhibition with Catherine Lord at the Fine Arts Gallery of the University of California, Irvine, titled “The Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism,” as well as his 2022 monumental kinetic sculpture Moving Chains commissioned by Creative Time at Governor’s Island, and his new 2025 work Hanging Tree, commissioned by the Equal Justice Initiative and installed in Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama. Gaines’s work is included in prominent public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), and the Tate (London).

We’re delighted that Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson will be presented at CAP UCLA’s Nimoy Theater this Saturday on March 14. The work will be performed by a 17-piece chamber ensemble, translating Benjamin Patterson’s Fluxus text score into sound. Tickets can be purchased at the CAP UCLA website. We hope to see you there! “Charles Gaines: Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson,” performed on March 21, 2024, as part of “Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner - Spirit Movers,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 18, 2023–April 7, 2024. Photo: Maria Baranova. Digital image © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Looking forward to the Manifestos 6 Performance taking place at the CAP UCLA Nimoy Theater on Saturday March 14th. If you haven’t purchased tickets, please visit Cap UCLA’s website. We look forward to seeing you there! “Charles Gaines: Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson,” performed on March 21, 2024, as part of “Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner - Spirit Movers,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 18, 2023–April 7, 2024. Photo: Maria Baranova. Digital image © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Experience the the west coast premiere of Charles Gaines' Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson on March 14 at #TheNimoy. Benjamin Patterson’s score for performance that uses words rather than traditional musical notation has been translated by Gaines through an inventive system Gaines devised in 2004: transcribing letters A through H from the texts into their equivalent musical notes. Witness words transform into music - tickets in bio. 📹: Video of the performance "Charles Gaines: Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson," in the exhibition "Artist's Choice: Grace Wales Bonner - Spirit Movers," March 21, 2024. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Videographer Oresti Tsonopoulos. Digital video © 2026 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Celebrate the language of music. On March 14 at The Nimoy, experience Charles Gaines' ‘Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson.’ A 17-piece chamber ensemble performs Gaines' translation of Fluxus artist Patterson’s ‘Variations for Double-Bass,' a score for performance that uses words rather than traditional musical notation. Tickets on sale now at the bio. 🎥: “Charles Gaines: Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson," performed on March 21, 2024, as part of "Artist's Choice: Grace Wales Bonner - Spirit Movers," The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 18, 2023–April 7, 2024. Photo: Maria Baranova. Digital image © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

"Suffice it to say that Gaines’ work may be the best of its kind." — Artforum On March 14 at The Nimoy, world-renowned artist Charles Gaines translates Fluxus artist Benjamin Patterson’s ‘Variations for Double-Bass’ (c. 1962), a score for performance that uses words rather than traditional musical notation. This west-coast premiere pays homage to Patterson while demonstrating Gaines’s engagement with systems of language, notation and sound. The performance will feature a 17-piece chamber ensemble led by conductor John Eagle, with corresponding texts from a Patterson score and interview. 📷: Charles Gaines by Marco Giannavola 📷: Ensemble photos by Maria Baranova Tickets in bio.

Charles Gaines Studio will cease operations on Friday, January 30 in solidarity with the national shutdown following recent events in Minneapolis and the escalating violence in cities across the country.

🙌 Trois voix, trois manières d’imaginer un monde plus juste. En écho à notre saison d’expositions, l’artiste conceptuel et musicien Charles Gaines présente dans le programme 37dB « Manifestos 3 » : une composition musicale qui réunit trois manifestes. Il transforme les mots de Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin et Terry Adkins en composition pour piano : le langage devient alors musique et les lettres dictent les notes. 👂 À découvrir dans la salle 37 du Palais de Tokyo jusqu’au 11 janvier 2026. 📌 C’est quoi le programme 37db ? Laboratoire sonore, la salle 37 devient 37db, lorsque le Palais de Tokyo confie ce territoire ovale à des artistes, muscien·nes, compositeur·ices, pour explorer l’exposition à travers l’expérience acoustique.

Manifestos 4: The Dred and Harriet Scott Decision is a performance-based installation by Charles Gaines will take place tonight, Sept 18 from 5:30–7:00pm in the Rubloff Auditorium at the Art Institute Chicago. The piece transforms the original text of the landmark 1857 US Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied US citizenship to people of African ancestry. Many see the ruling as one of the most controversial decisions of the Supreme Court, authorizing racism and irrevocably altering the course of the country’s social, cultural, and political evolution. The five-part performance builds upon the artist’s Manifestos series, in which he disarms and draws upon historical texts, uniting the rational, mathematical, and lyrical structures of music with the irrationality of violence, racial tensions, and social injustice. To create the composition for each Manifesto, Gaines used a rule-based methodology, transcribing letters A through H from the texts into their equivalent musical notes (with the use of the letter “H” representing the code used in early Baroque tradition for B-flat). While the resulting composition sounds intentional and fluid, it is ultimately controlled by the predetermined notation system and the structure of language. This performance is presented alongside the exhibition Charles Gaines: Night/Crimes. This program is co-presented with the Leadership Advisory Committee. Photo Credit: Manifestos 4: The Dred and Harriet Scott Decision, 2024 Charles Gaines, presented by REDCAT, Los Angeles. Photo: Angel Origgi, courtesy of REDCAT.

This spring, Los Angeles-based artist Charles Gaines paused city life for the English countryside as Hauser & Wirth’s artist-in-residence. With a diverse practice that spans photography, drawing, installation and music, Gaines’ focus shifted to writing. Alongside an essay for his forthcoming ‘Collected Writings’ publication, to be released in 2026, Gaines worked on a new music composition as part of his Manifesto series. The composition examines the rulings from two landmark US Supreme Court cases and was performed in a special preview at Hauser & Wirth’s West Hollywood space, marking the end of his exhibition ‘Numbers and Trees: The Tanzania Baobabs.’

Delighted to share photos from this year’s experience at AFTACON! 1. @colleenmhouston , Charles, and @seenbyjustine in front of “Numbers and Trees: Cincinnati Cottonwoods” at ArtWorks’ Hannan ArtPark. This mural, the first in Cincinnati by Charles Gaines, was brought to life through collaboration with local youth apprentices and teaching artists . 2. Charles signing the Artist Hall of Fame at ArtWorks. Photo by @colleenmhouston . 3. Lunch with @sarahstolar and @joe.girandola —moments like these make AFTACON so meaningful. 4. @seenbyjustine , @steffanijemison , Charles, and @sandywilliams_iv at AFTACON—sharing a stage and a vision for art’s transformative power. Photo by @joe.girandola