Black Op Studios, founded by Christian Gines (b. Mississippi), spans fashion, literature, curation, archival practices, photography, and sculpture, informed by the canon of Black Critical Thought and Black visual and material culture. The throughline of Black Op’s work interrogates how Black Aesthetic and Optical practices have served as incubators of Black virtuosity rooted in the intimate, illicit, and incandescent tradition of the Afro-diasporic American South.
Gines has worked for a myriad of artists, curators, and scholars. He served as a Research Fellow under Chloe and Mahfuz Sultan at Clocks/Architecture and the Virgil Abloh Foundation, assisting with curation for Virgil Abloh: The Codes (2025) and The Virgil Reader Volume 001, which he also contributed to. Gines has worked on exhibitions such as Ralph Ellison at Harvard (2023) and a forthcoming exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum on Ragtime (2026). He has worked on book projects such as David Alekhuogie’s A Reprise (2025), author and Dean of the New School Ben Barry’s Crip Fashion Book (2026), and multiple forthcoming books by writer and poet Saeed Jones. Gines has served as a Research Assistant to Fred Moten, Keith Jones, Ben Barry, David Alekhuogie, and Jonathan Square, and as a Poetry Reader and Reviewer for the literary magazine The Rumpus. He has assisted with brand and artistic development for The North Star. As a writer, he has had his work appear in The Virgil Reader Volume 001, Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, Parsons Fashion Studies Digest, Hampton Institute, and The Crimson, among others.
Gines received his bachelor’s degree in History & Literature and African American Studies from Harvard College, currently studies Fashion Studies at Parsons School of Design, and has been accepted into Columbia Law as a L.E.A.D Fellow.
Please address all inquiries to cagines21@gmail.com
Black Op Studios 