Malik Gaines
Malik Gaines (born 1973, Visalia, California) is an artist, writer, and professor who is one of three members of the artist collective My Barbarian. The group formed in 2000 and includes Jade Gordon and Alexandro Segade as they perform musical/theatrical and critical techniques to act out social difficulties. They have exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Museum, New York in 2021. Gaines's practice includes events and exhibitions, music composition, video work, scholarly research and collaboration. He is the author of the book Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left: A History of the Impossible (2017, NYU Press) and is the co-artistic director of The Industry opera company in Los Angeles. Early life and education Gaines received a B.A. in History from UCLA (1996), an MFA in Writing from Cal Arts' School of Critical Studies (1999), and a PhD in Theater and Performance Studies from UCLA (2011). Work Gaines was an associate professor in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University and now an Associate Professor at UC San Diego. Alongside his performance practice, Gaines is a writer and scholar whose work has been published in Art Journal, Women & Performance, Artforum, and BOMB Magazine. Gaines has written