Alongside his career as an artist, Charles Gaines has engaged deeply with the history of aesthetics, philosophy, and politics through parallel writing and teaching practices for over half a century. This edited volume brings together more than twenty-five of the artist’s writings, including several new pieces penned especially for this publication or newly revised for publication from decades-old notes and manuscripts. Critical essays and lectures, from his influential career as a member of the faculty at CalArts set out Gaines’s thinking about topics including art and philosophy, reality and representation, while other texts show a lighter side to his artistic and conceptual commitments. Complementing these writings are a selection of illuminating interviews with cultural voices including Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, and Fred Moten, among others. Edited by curator Kate Fowle, 'Charles Gaines: Content and Form' is essential reading not only for followers of Gaines’s work but for anyone interested in thinking about and around art.
