Malik Gaines writes for performance. He composed the opera Star Choir (2023), which was produced by The Industry opera company in Los Angeles, where he was also an artistic co-director. Gaines performs and exhibits with the artist group My Barbarian, whose 20-year survey The Audience is Always Right was presented at the Whitney Museum and the ICA Los Angeles (2021-22). He is the author of Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left (NYU Press, 2017) and many essays and articles about art and performance. Gaines is a Professor of Visual Arts at UC San Diego, where he is currently Ph.D. Director.
At MacDowell, Gaines composed music for the video Nine of Cats by his performance art group My Barbarian, which will be presented in an exhibition at Lubov NYC. Gaines also worked on writing the chapter Abstractive Democracy for his ongoing book project, which considers public art and performance works and the symbolic limits of U.S. sovereignty. This book has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation's Arts Writers Grant (2018).
