Faculty Charles Gaines Exhibits at The Hammer Museum, Art + Practice

Conceptual artist and long-time School of Art faculty member Charles Gaines has two exhibits currently on view in Los Angeles. Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1999, which was previously exhibited at Studio Museum in Harlem last fall, can now be viewed at UCLA’s Hammer Museum through May 24. In conjunction with the Hammer, Art + Practice (A+P) hosts the exhibit Charles Gaines: Librettos: Manuel de Falla / Stokely Carmichael, which opens Saturday (Feb. 28) and runs through May 31.

The first museum survey of early works from his 40-year career, Gridwork focuses on pieces that employ his distinctive method of using logic, pattern and systems to produce images. More from the Hammer Museum:

…Gaines is celebrated for his photographs, drawings, and works on paper that investigate how rules-based procedures construct order and meaning. Working serially in progressive and densely layered bodies of works, Gaines explores the interplay between objectivity and interpretation, the systematic and the poetic. His groundbreaking work of this period serves as a critical bridge between the first generation conceptualists of the 1960s and 1970s and those artists of later generations exploring the limits of subjectivity and language.

The collection includes rare and never-before-seen works, some of which were presumed lost, according to the Hammer Museum.

Accompanying the Gridwork exhibit are several events hosted by the Hammer Museum this spring, including:

• March 1 – Exhibition Tours: Gridwork 1974-1989
• March 18, April 15, May 13 – Lunchtime Art Talks: Charles Gaines
• April 2 – Hammer Lectures Artist Talk: CalArts faculty Sam Durant & Charles Gaines
• May 20 – Hammer Lectures A History of Refusal: Black Artists and Conceptualism

The Art + Practice exhibit is a 12-part body of work that employs Gaines’ systems-based conceptualism, highlighting the enduring influence of composer John Cage’s chance experiments. More from Art + Practice:

Librettos brings together the score of a tragic love story, the opera La Vida Breve (c. 1904) by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, and a fiery 1964 speech by the civil rights activist and Black Panther Party member Stokely Carmichael. The unexpected combination of music and text foregrounds the universality of long-standing class and racial struggles and the power of music to bridge difference.

An open house for Librettos will be held on Saturday (Feb. 28), from 4-7 pm at Art + Practice, located in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. A+P is a private arts and education foundation conceived and founded by artist and CalArts alumnus Mark Bradford (Art BFA 1995, MFA 1997), philanthropist and collector Eileen Harris Norton and social activist Allan DiCastro.

Watch an interview of Gaines conducted by CalArts’ Provost Jeannene Przyblyski from Oct. 2013.