Los Angeles, CA — The Hammer Museum announced today that artist and educator Charles Gaines and lawyer and transgender rights activist Chase Strangio will be honored at the 18th annual Gala in the Garden on Saturday, October 8, 2022, marking the return of the in-person celebration recognizing artists and innovators. Mark Bradford and Laverne Cox will deliver the tribute speeches for Gaines and Strangio respectively.

Hammer Director Ann Philbin said. “Charles Gaines has been an important artist and intergenerational mentor for decades, with deep roots in the Los Angeles art community and beyond. Chase Strangio is an inspiring national leader in the fight for trans rights, through both litigation and advocacy. We are thrilled to honor Charles and Chase at our first in-person gala since 2019.”

The museum’s largest fundraising event attracts cultural and civic leaders in Los Angeles, as well as artists, collectors, and patrons of the arts. The last Gala in the Garden in 2019, which honored Judy Chicago and Jordan Peele, raised $2.7 million for the museum.

Proceeds from the gala will support the Hammer’s dynamic and internationally acclaimed exhibitions and public programs. On view this fall are Joan Didion: What She Means, an exhibition as portrait by guest curator Hilton Als; Picasso Cut Papers, a survey of works on paper spanning the artist’s full career; and Bob Thompson: This House is Mine, a traveling retrospective of the visionary African American painter.

Since 2005, the Hammer’s Gala in the Garden has honored an artist and a cultural luminary who have made profound contributions to society through their work. Past honorees include Hilton Als, Laurie Anderson, Margaret Atwood, John Baldessari, Mark Bradford, Judy Chicago, Joan Didion, Ava DuVernay, Dave Eggers, Frank Gehry, Robert Gober, Matt Groening, Todd Haynes, Diane Keaton, Mike Kelley, Barbara Kruger, Tony Kushner, Glenn Ligon, Paul McCarthy, Joni Mitchell, Catherine Opie, Jordan Peele, Lari Pittman, Miuccia Prada, Charles Ray, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, and Alice Waters.

For event inquiries, please call (310) 443-7026 or email [email protected].

ABOUT THE HONOREES

Charles Gaines is highly regarded as a leading practitioner of conceptualism and an influential educator at CalArts. The Los Angeles-based artist is celebrated for his works on paper and acrylic glass, photographs, drawings, musical compositions, and installations that investigate how rule-based procedures influence representation and construct meaning. Gaines’ work is collected internationally, including at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His exhibition Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989 was organized by the Studio Museum and presented at the Hammer in 2015. His compositions created by translating revolutionary texts into musical notation have been widely performed, notably at the 2017 Melbourne Festival, at the Brooklyn Museum in 2016, and the 56th Biennale di Venezia, Venice. In 1977, Gaines received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2007 a United States Artists Fellowship Award, in 2013 the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, in 2015 the CAA Artist Award, and the REDCAT award in 2018. Gaines was the 2019 recipient of the Edward MacDowell Medal. He is represented by Hauser & Wirth.

Chase Strangio is Deputy Director for Transgender Justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. A national leader in transgender rights litigation and advocacy Chase has been counsel in some of the past decade’s most pivotal legal fights on behalf of transgender litigants including the ACLU’s challenge to North Carolina’s notorious HB2, Carcaño, et al. v. Cooper, et al, the ACLU’s challenge to Trump’s trans military ban, Stone v. Trump, the case of Aimee Stephens, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v EEOC at the Supreme Court, and recent challenges to anti-trans laws and policies in Idaho, Texas and Arkansas. Chase was also counsel in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that struck down bans on marriages for same-sex couples. In addition to his advocacy in the courtroom and in state legislatures, Chase appears regularly in media and has produced multiple short films including the Emmy-award winning short, Texas Strong. In 2020, Chase was named to TIME Magazine’s List of the most 100 influential people of the year. Chase is also a co-founder of the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, TranSanta, and the Trans Week of Visibility and Action. Chase is counsel in the ACLU’s challenge to North Carolina’s notorious HB2, Carcaño, et al. v. Cooper, et al, the ACLU’s challenge to Trump’s trans military ban, Stone v. Trump, and the case of Aimee Stephens, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v EEOC, which was heard by the Supreme Court in October 2019.