Jan, 22, 2025
Special Events and Programs
Phoenix Art Museum hosts Charles Gaines and Thelma Golden for Spring Lenhardt Lecture
The artist’s work is currently on view in two exhibitions at PhxArt
PHOENIX (January 21, 2024) –This February, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) will present its Spring Lenhardt Lecture featuring renowned multimedia artist Charles Gaines in conversation with Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Following the presentation, attendees will enjoy a performance of Gaines’ multi-sensory work Manifestos 3 (2018) produced by Mads Falcone and performed by pianist richard valitutto. Tickets to the Lenhardt Lecture on February 5 at 6 pm are free for Museum Members and $5 for the public. They are now live here.
“We are pleased to welcome back Charles Gaines to Phoenix Art Museum, along with Thelma Golden, this spring as part of our ongoing Lenhardt Lecture series, made possible through the generosity of the Arizona-based Lenhardt family,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Over the past three months, PhxArt guests have had the chance to discover two incredible exhibitions of Gaines’ work—Charles Gaines: Numbers and Trees (Arizona Series) and Charles Gaines: 1992-2023—and this season’s Lenhardt Lecture is a unique opportunity to hear directly from the artist, as well as experience a special performance from his Manifestos series that is rarely seen live.”
Charles Gaines (b. 1944, Charleston SC), who lives and works in Los Angeles, is a preeminent figure in conceptual art, widely known for converting images and text-based documents into numerical structures, musical notations, and other sign systems through rigorous translation mechanisms. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and around the world, most notably at Dia Beacon; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York NY; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA. It is also included in prominent public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Tate, London, UK, among others.
Gaines will appear in dialogue with Thelma Golden, the Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, considered the world’s leading institution devoted to visual arts by artists of African descent. Golden began her career in 1987 as an intern at the Studio Museum, then joined the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988. While at the Whitney, she organized numerous innovative exhibitions, including the groundbreaking 1993 Whitney Biennial and landmark exhibition Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in American Art in 1994. Golden returned to the Studio Museum in 2000 as the Deputy Director for exhibitions and programs and was named the Director and Chief Curator in 2005, succeeding Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims. Golden’s curation at the Studio Museum includes the inauguration of the five-part “F” series that began with Freestyle in 2001, whichhighlighted emerging Black artists. Other exhibitions include Chris Ofili: Afro Muses 1995–2005 and Black Romantic: The Figurative in Contemporary African-American Art. Under her leadership, the Museum has gained increased renown as a global leader in the exhibition of contemporary art, a center for innovative education, and a cultural anchor in the Harlem community.
Following Gaines and Golden’s conversation, visitors will experience Gaines’ multi-sensory work Manifestos 3 (2018). The multimedia performance functions as a systematic transliteration of three revolutionary manifestos into musical notation: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech from 1967, Terry Adkins’s Visionary Recital (1993), and James Baldwin’s essay Princes and Powers (1957). The musical notations, as written and arranged for piano by Gaines, will be produced by Mads Falcone and performed by pianist richard valitutto.
“Dawn and I are pleased to welcome Charles Gaines and Thelma Golden as this Spring’s Lenhardt Lecture speakers,” said David Lenhardt, vice chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “In conversation, Gaines and Golden will provide meaningful insight into Gaines’ career and practice, including its ongoing evolution and its impact on the larger field of conceptual art.”
In addition to his presentation at Phoenix Art Museum, Gaines will visit with local artists and creatives to provide mentorship. This educational and community-based work is another component of the Lenhardt Lectures and enables lecture speakers to give back and engage with Arizona-based creatives in various capacities.
For more information about the Lenhardt Lecture series, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org. For high-resolution images, click here.
About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion design, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, an art+music festival, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.
About the David and Dawn Lenhardt Lecture and the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative
The David and Dawn Lenhardt Lecture engages Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world. In 2018, the inaugural lecture presented New-York based artist Jim Hodges, and subsequent lectures have featured artists Shara Hughes, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Arcmanoro Niles, Teresita Fernández, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Derek Fordjour, Rashid Johnson, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe in conversation with Larry Ossei-Mensah, and Leonardo Drew.
The Lenhardt Lecture is a key component of the David and Dawn Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Made possible through the generosity of the Arizona-based Lenhardt family, the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative was established in 2017 to deepen the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art through various programs, namely the Lenhardt Lectures, which engage Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world; the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, which enables Phoenix Art Museum to collect works by contemporary artists; and the Dawn and David Lenhardt Gallery, designated for the presentation of contemporary art, including works acquired with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative, loans from national and local collectors, and a rotating series of artworks from the Lenhardts’ own collection. In 2021, the initiative was expanded to support the diversification of the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition of works by artists contributing to discourses on race, gender, and other socially relevant concerns, including those by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women artists, among others. Since 2017, the Museum has acquired artworks by Shara Hughes, Arcmanoro Niles, Derek Fordjour, Rashid Johnson, and Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative.
About Charles Gaines
Charles Gaines (b. 1944, Charleston, SC) lives and works in Los Angeles. He recently retired from the CalArts School of Art, where he was on the faculty for over 30 years and established a fellowship to provide critical scholarship support for Black students in the M.F.A. Art program. Gaines has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and around the world, most notably at Dia Beacon, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York NY, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA. His work is included in prominent public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York NY; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Tate, London, UK. His work has also been presented at the 1975 Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale in 2007 and 2015.
In 2022 Gaines launched his most ambitious public art project yet, ‘The American Manifest,’ presented by Creative Time, Governors Island Arts and Times Square Arts. Unfolding in three parts over the course of two years and across three sites, the work features both performance and large-scale sculptural works to tell the complicated story of the over 400-year settlement of the United States, focusing on the country’s foundations of colonialism, racial capitalism, democracy, and the legacy of Manifest Destiny.
In addition to his artistic practice, Gaines has published several essays on contemporary art, including ‘Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism’ (University of California, Irvine, 1993) and ‘The New Cosmopolitanism’ (California State University, Fullerton, 2008). In 2019, Gaines received the 60th Edward MacDowell Medal. He was inducted into the National Academy of Design’s 2020 class of National Academicians and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2022. In 2023, he received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
About Thelma Golden
Thelma Golden is the Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the world’s leading institution devoted to visual arts by artists of African descent. She has curated numerous innovative exhibitions, including the groundbreaking 1993 Whitney Biennial, the landmark exhibition Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in American Art in 1994, Freestyle, Chris Ofili: Afro Muses 1995–2005, Black Romantic: The Figurative in Contemporary African-American Art, and many more.
Golden holds a B.A. in Art History and African American Studies from Smith College. She has received honorary doctorates from the New School (2022), Columbia University (2018), Barnard College (2010), the City College of New York (2009), San Francisco Art Institute (2008), and Smith College (2004). In 2024, Golden was awarded the W.E.B. DuBois Medal by Harvard University and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. She was also listed in Time Magazine’s TIME100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2023, Golden was the first curator to be awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. She received the J. Paul Getty Medal in 2018 and the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in 2010. Golden has also been the recipient of various fellowships and was named a Ford Foundation Fellow in 2015 and a Henry Crown Fellow in 2008. President Barack Obama appointed her to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, on which she served from 2010 to 2016. Golden currently serves on the board of directors for the Barack Obama Foundation, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Mellon Foundation. She is also a member of the advisory committee for the Goldman Sachs “One Million Black Women” initiative and the Advisory Board for the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums. Recently, she served on the International Jury for the Venice Architecture Biennale (2023). Golden is a recognized authority on Black art and an active lecturer and panelist who speaks about contemporary art and culture at national and international institutions.