Charles Gaines

Charles Gaines’s grid- and systems-based art helped to establish the field of Conceptual Art in the 1970s. Today, using a variety of mediums, he continues to interpret complex systems of cognition and communication. Gaines, who has inspired a generation of students as a professor at the California Institute of the Arts, received his BA from Jersey City State University and his MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Most recently, his work was included in the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia; Prospect .3 at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans; The Freedom Principle, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Sites of Reason at The Museum of Modern Art. His critically acclaimed solo exhibition, Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974–1989, traveled from The Studio Museum in Harlem to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.