ART CITIES:London-Charles Gaines

Since the late 1970s, Charles Gaines is highly regarded as an important exponent of conceptual art. In his drawings, works on paper and photographs he continually investigates how rule-based processes and systems construct the experiences of aesthetics, politics and language. By employing multi-layered practices, including images, texts and grids, as well as working in a serial character, Gaines examines image structures and critically questions forms of representation. His formal and at times mathematic methods are often ruptured by mysterious and illogical elements and thus explore what constitutes the rational and the irrational, the objective and the subjective.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Hauser & Wirth Gallery Archive

Launching online from 29 January 2021, Charles Gaines presentσ his first ever solo exhibition in the UK featuring new works across both galleries at Hauser & Wirth London. Comprising two new bodies of Charles Gaines’ critically acclaimed Plexiglas gridworks, the exhibition  “Multiples of Nature, Trees and Faces” includes his “Numbers and Trees” and “Numbers and Faces” series. With this exhibition, Gaines continues to engage formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and the subjective realms, as well as navigating ideas around identity and diversity. Gaines’ distinctive and generative approach forges a critical link between first generation American conceptualists and subsequent generations of artists who are pushing the limits of conceptualism today. The newest chapter in Gaines’ long-established practice comes in the form of “Numbers and Faces: Multi-Racial/Ethnic Combinations Series 1”, a continuation of the “Faces” series that Gaines began in 1978. In this newest series, Gaines creates an amalgam of faces within one artwork and seeks to interrogate ideas of representation, and more specifically the political and cultural ideas that shape one’s understanding of the concept of multi-racial identity. In preparing for this work, Gaines searched for people who self-identified as multi-racial or multi-ethnic and invited them to be part of the work. Each face depicted in this new series is assigned two colors: one for the contour lines of the face and the other for the space in between the contour lines. The faces are sequentially mapped out and overlaid one-by-one over the course of the series. Formal black and white photographs of each successive sitter appear on the back panel of each work. The concept of identity politics has played a central role within Gaines’ oeuvre, and the radical approach he employs addresses issues of race in ways that transcend the limits of representation. In both series on view, Gaines applies a shared system of rules. “Numbers and Trees: London Series 1” provides a new format of Gaines’ “Numbers and Trees” Plexiglas series, which began in 1986 and continues to evolve. The image of the tree has been central to Charles Gaines’ work since the mid-1970s and his methodical examination of their form is continued in the newest iteration. These newest works are larger in scale than previous counterparts and are inspired by the vast English trees Gaines examined and photographed during a visit to Melbury in Dorset in early 2020. Gaines explored a number of iconic English gardens and forests before settling on Dorset as his site for the newest series, having noticed the immense width of the trees that would translate perfectly to the increased scale in which he wanted to work. Gaines plots each London tree by assigning it a distinctive color and a numbered grid that reflects the full form of the tree depicted in the detail photograph on the back panel of the work. Each successive work is realised by overlaying the forms of trees one at a time and in progression, following Gaines’ systematic sequencing process. These works call into question both the objective nature of the trees within them, and the subjective natural and material human actions that surround them.

Photo: Charles Gaines, Multi-Racial/Ethnic Combinations Series 1, Set A: Face #11, Martina Crouch (Nigerian Igbo Tribe/White (detail), 2020, acrylic paint, acrylic sheet and photograph, 96.5 x 81.3 x 8.9cm/38 x32 x 3 ½ in., Photo Fredrik Nilsen, © Charles Gaines, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Gallery

Info: Hauser & Wirth Gallery, 23 Savile Row, Mayfair, London, Duration: 29/1-1/5/2021, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00 (Launching online. In accordance with recent government guidance, the gallery is temporarily closed until further notice), www.hauserwirth.com