He is one of three members of the artist collective My Barbarian,[1][2] 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.
[4] Gaines's practice includes events and exhibitions, music composition, video work, scholarly research and collaboration.
[5][6] 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.
Du Bois' double consciousness to explore Nina Simone's "performance position that marshals paradoxical and simultaneous differences to present a provisional form of subjectivity."
[22] In 2021,The Whitney Museum[23] and Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles[24] presented a 20-year survey of work by My Barbarian which included an exhibition, performance program, and a book publication.