The Elson Lecture Series features distinguished contemporary artists whose work is represented in the National Gallery's permanent collection. Past artists include Mary Kelly, Mark Bradford, Kerry Jams Marshall, Cecily Brown, Robert Gober, and Frank Stella to name a few.Read more here.
Atlantic (Tiepolo), 2022, Four archival pigment prints with UV laminate in artist's frames, 72 5/8 x 49 1/8 x 5 in
Todd Gray “Atlantic (Tiepolo),” 2022, acquired by Los Angeles County Museum of Art
ANNOUNCING THE 2022–23 ROME PRIZE WINNERS
The American Academy in Rome (AAR) announced Todd Gray as one of the winners of the prestigious 2022–23 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowships. These highly competitive fellowships support advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities.
Rome Prize winners are selected annually by independent juries of distinguished artists and scholars through a national competition. “I first became aware of the Rome Prize while reading one of my favorite photography books, ''Anthony Hernandez’s "Pictures for Rome" (1998-99), made while he was a fellow at the American Academy,” Todd Gray said. “I never dared to imagine I’d be a fellow and am overwhelmed with joy.”
During the fellowship, Gray will continue his photo assemblage investigation, the hidden order of the whole, which explores the historic socio-political, cultural and economic relationships between Western Europe, post-colonial Africa and North America. Imperial gardens, architecture, monuments, and signifiers of Old Europe will be primary sites of research and photographic investigation while in the residency.
© Brian Guido
the hidden order of the whole (venus). 2021. Recently acquired by National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
the hidden order of the whole (venus), 2021, Four archival pigament prints with UV laminate in artist's frames, 109 5/8 x 146 1/8 x 4 1/2 in
Teaching, Making, Mentoring: Black American Portraits – Wednesday 4/13
Presented in conjunction with Black American Portraits, join us for a conversation between Sadie Barnette, Charles Gaines, and Todd Gray focusing on teaching, mentorship and their respective art practices. Moderated by Liz Andrews, co-curator of the exhibition and Executive Director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, with an introductory poetry performance by Yazmin Monet Watkins.
Learn more about the exhibition, Black American Portraits, on view through April 17, 2022
RSVP for the conversation prior to the event.
Sumptuous Memories of Plundering Kings, 2021, Fourteen archival pigment prints with UV laminate in artist's frames, 84 5/8 x 345 x 7 inches
Todd Gray in Art Basel Miami
A Curator Makes Room for Big Ideas and Big Art
The Mexico City curator Magalí Arriola will again assemble Meridians at Art Basel Miami Beach, a diverting lineup of hard-to-fit pieces.
Among the works that fit in that broad category are Todd Gray’s 14-part, 30-foot-long “Sumptuous Memories of Plundering Kings,” which examines the enduring fallout of colonialism and slavery (presented by New York’s David Lewis gallery).
Sumptuous Memories of Plundering Kings, 2021, Fourteen archival pigment prints with UV laminate in artist's frames, 84 5/8 x 345 x 7 inches
the hidden order of the whole (venus), 2021, Four archival pigament prints with UV laminate in artist's frames, 109 5/8 x 146 1/8 x 4 1/2 in
the hidden order of the whole at David Lewis Gallery, NY
Todd Gray
the hidden order of the whole
Opening September 9th, on view through October 23, 2021
David Lewis is pleased to present Todd Gray, “the hidden order of the whole.” It is Gray’s second exhibition with the gallery, and the inaugural exhibition at the gallery’s new location at 57 Walker Street.
The title of the exhibition—also the title of each individual work in the exhibition—is drawn from a passage by French-Caribbean theorist Édouard Glissant:
The position of each part within this whole: that is, the acknowledged validity of each specific Plantation yet at the same time the urgent need to understand the hidden order of the whole—so as to wander there without getting lost.
With this passage, Gray introduces a new level of conceptual reflexivity to his singular and ever-expanding photographic investigation and deconstruction, which now encompasses assemblages of cinematic scale and operatic intensity. “The position of each part within the whole:” A doubled history of a doubled world. Gray, a double alumnus of CalArts, developing (doubling) the insight of Stuart Hall: That as creatures of the mass media we are no more able to see and reflect upon those media as than fish are capable of experiencing or reflecting upon the sea. (“Sea is History.”—Dereck Walcott.) Thus began Gray’s deconstruction, his systematic dismantling of the assumptions of high-art photography: what should be flat is sculpted; what should be under glass is open and exposed; the single image is always only as a part of an interlocking whole, while at the same time the inherent multiplicity of the photographic element is reclaimed as single, unique. These procedures are deployed in the service of another, analogous, global “hidden order”: that of colonialism and the history of the interaction of Western European powers and modes of knowing (cannons and canons, to quote Amiri Baraka quoting Toni Morrison) with their oppressed colonial, specifically African and African-American, subjects.
To this end—driven, that is, by an urgent need to understand (to reveal, even if by dismantling) the hidden order of the whole—Gray deploys a range of images from his archive, ranging from newly shot images of European palace gardens to commissioned images drawn from his years as a professional photographer in the music world. Each image in these is photographed by Gray himself. They are not appropriations. Often the power of insight, the revelation of the hidden order, comes from the potential in the juxtapositions. The dancer in “venus,” for example, whom Gray photographed on the set of the MC Hammer video (featuring Deion Sanders and Jean Claude Van Damme) “Straight to My Feet”, is superimposed above Gray’s image of the marble neoclassical Temple of Love at the Versailles (this was visible to Marie Antoinette from her room at the Petit Trianon); to her right is a beach-house under construction in Akwidaa, Ghana (where Gray has maintained a studio for over fifteen years) above which, also in red, is a detail of a classical sculpture from the Luxembourg Gardens. The work is at once additive—internally (the accumulated vertical rhythm of the columns, for example) and in its procedural essence (the literally additive, constructive nature of Gray’s practice of assembling images), and especially by way of what is implied, or revealed, by way of these juxtapositions, these invisible but generative crops and sutures. At the same time, they are de-constructive, as the subject of this and every work, considered especially as an accumulation of literal and historical sutures between parts (and worlds), must be understood not as a image of what we are told is true, but rather an attack on that image and a reconstruction of our photographic and ideological visions with an image of the hidden, the necessarily hidden, order of the whole. The urgent naming and revealing of this order is Gray’s task in this exhibition.
davidlewisgallery.com
Online Art Discussion on Euclidean Gris Gris
Todd Gray, Fair Game (Keep Your Head To The Sky), 2020, Four archival pigment prints with UV laminate in found frames and artist's frames, 46 5/8 x 40 5/8 x 4 in
May 13, 2021 06:00 PM EST
Online Art Discussion on Euclidean Gris Gris as part of the programming for MATRIX 186 exhibition at The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art on view through July 18, 2021
Zeynep Çelik Alexander, professor of art history at Columbia University and Neelika Jayawardane, professor of English at State University of New York-Oswego present research on the transatlantic slave trade, imperial gardens, classification systems, and colonial photography. Following the presentation, artist Todd Gray leads a discussion about how he examines these themes in his work, on view in MATRIX 186. Co-sponsored with The Amistad Center for Art & Culture.
Installation view, Pushing the Margins A Survey of LA Artists, Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway
Pushing the Margins: A Survey of LA Artists at Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway, on view through June 13, 2021
Curated by Charles Gaines
Edgar Arceneaux / Njideka Akunyili Crosby / Todd Gray / Lauren Halsey / Rodney McMillian / Gary Simmons / Cauleen Smith /
Henry Taylor / Elizabeth Webb
The work of the Los Angeles-based artists in this exhibition reflect on the lived experience of certain aspects of African American culture which includes diasporic Africans. The work poetically and politically addresses a variety of experiences that is part of the black experience which critiques the history of art; it calls up the constraints imposed by the mainstream/marginal binary that separates the experience of whites from that of blacks, and in addition normalizes one at the expense of the other. This exhibition addresses the cosmopolitan nature of American culture and at the same time expands the idea of what is possible in art with respect to cultural representation. Specifically, we realize that there are unique narratives that make up the diasporic African experience, and that these narratives, although different from the mainstream are very much integrated in the fabric of a larger and more inclusive mainstream narrative. We come to realize that the nuances of differences that we are used to when considering individual identities also exist on the cultural level, and that art is well equipped to deal with this but requires a rethinking of the history of representation in art in order to embrace this nuance on the level of culture. Although this is a narrative that reflects the interest of diasporic African culture – the exhibition features the focus and interests of Los Angeles based artists.
Charles Gaines
LA, 2021
Installation view, Pushing the Margins A Survey of LA Artists, Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway
Recent acquisition by Whitney Museum of American Art
Todd Gray
Onisimo I Leopold, 2019
Three archival pigment prints in artist’s frames and found frames, UV laminate, 39 1/4 x 56 x 3 in.
Courtesy of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;
gift of Laura Belgray and Steven Eckler.
Todd Gray turns colonialism and the art of photography on its head by Carolina A. Miranda for the Los Angeles Times
Installation view of Todd Gray / MATRIX 186, March 4–June 20, 2021. Courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
Todd Gray, Sumptuous Memories of Plundering Kings, 2021, Fourteen archival pigment prints with UV laminate in artist’s frames, 84 3/4 x 341 x 5 1/2 in.
Courtesy the artist and David Lewis, N.Y.
It was sociologist Stuart Hall who led Los Angeles artist Todd Gray to rethink the nature of his work. The prolific Jamaican-British theorist, who died in 2014, was noted for his profound examinations of power and the ways in which culture can be deployed to maintain a certain order. In resistance, he noted, there is also power.
“Those ideas inspired Gray to exert his own resistance by rattling the conventions of photography. “I started using round frames, I went from 2-D to 3-D, I stopped using glazing,” he explains. “It led me to challenge the assumption of what it meant to properly exhibit a photo.”
For his latest solo show, which recently opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn., the artist zeroes in on colonial power and the ways in which it can manifest in barely perceived ways.
“Todd Gray / Matrix 186,” as the exhibition is titled, features a series of works that juxtapose photographs of European imperial gardens with scenery the artist photographed during sojourns in Africa. (Gray, a former commercial photographer, uses almost all his own imagery — except for the occasional Hubble Space Telescope shot of the cosmos, which he downloads from the internet courtesy of NASA.)
Read full article here: URL
Artist Talk: Todd Gray / MATRIX 186
Todd Gray, Cosmic Journey (1619), 2019. Four archival pigment prints in artist’s frames and found frames, UV laminate.
*Recent acquisition by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Artist Todd Gray layers photographs into large-scale assemblages that trace various processes of colonization across history and geographies. Join Gray for a guided visit through his MATRIX exhibition to hear more about how his work addresses the history of the slave trade, the diaspora, portraiture, and systems of classification.
March 8, 2021 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm ET
MAM Conversations: Todd Gray
Todd Gray, Euclidean Gris Gris Tropic of Entropy, 2019, Four archival pigment prints with UV laminate in artist's frames, 73 3/4 x 90 x 4 1/2 in.
Join MAM Conversations as we visit photographer Todd Gray in Los Angeles. Todd’s work explores issues of black masculinity, diaspora, and power, both historical and contemporary. He is inspired by cultural connections to West Africa, particularly Ghana, which has become his second home. We’ll be discussing his recent projects as well as MAM’s new acquisition of his work, Euclidean Gris Gris: Tropic of Entropy.
Nana Adusei-Poku will be moderating the conversation. She is the Senior Academic Advisor and Luma Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Studies and Contemporary Art at Bard College. She previously worked with Todd on the exhibition Todd Gray: Euclidean Gris Gris held at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. Nana explores cultural shifts as reflected in art and culture, the black diasporas, and critical pedagogy.
Closed captioning will be provided. This series is funded, in part, by a generous perpetual gift from the Julia Norton Babson Memorial Fund.
MARCH 4, 2021 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM ET
Recording of the talk can be found here.
Photography as Revolutionary Aesthetic: An LA Artist Conversation
Artists Todd Gray, Cauleen Smith, and Ken Gonzales-Day, each with distinct approaches to photo-based practices, discuss how they integrate concepts of identity and explore the tensions between refusal and inclusion. These artists are all native to California and their experiences as professors and artists reinforce the importance of place and community. Addressing themes from the forthcoming exhibition Photo Flux: Unshuttering LA, they’ll discuss their commitment to creating and expanding opportunities for emerging artists to stand, flex, and grow.
Recorded conversation: URL
Todd Gray, Support Systems, 1983, silver gelatin prints, mixed media, ©Todd Gray Courtesy of the artist and David Lewis, New York.
Todd Gray: Diary in Fragments by Max King Cap
Guggenheim Fellow and native Angeleno Todd Gray is a visual artist whose work is in the collections of MOCA, LACMA, the Whitney, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. While mostly photo-based he also presents performance works; that is how we first met and collaborated. We recently spoke over the phone for a couple of hours, talking about food and his career, in no particular order.
AUGUST 2020: The quality of my work as a Black artist could reasonably be questioned; taste, trends, events, politics, all influence reactions to cultural artifacts and their respective makers. Yet it came as a surprise to me, early and repeatedly, that my very Blackness itself was also interrogational, and that I would become one of its chief examiners.
JUNE 2004: The “California Missions” project was a stab at the colonial history of my native state. Too immersed in the cultural windfall of Southern California and still too angry to assess my own colonization, I created a series of enormous photographs of landscape as guillotine, a symbol of the proselytizing missionaries who sliced a cultural before/after through the people, their land, their traditions. Half a horse protruded from a forest while the other side of the photo was a gleaming mirror finish so the people, newly redeemed in Christ, could see themselves reborn as saved souls.
Todd Gray, Sketch (Smiling Faces), 2020, Four archival pigment prints in artist's frames with UV laminate, 33.75 x 51.5 x 2 inches
I AM NOT THIS HAIR, I AM NOT THIS SKIN, I AM THE SOUL THAT LIVES WITHIN
Shulamit Nazarian is pleased to present I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within., a group exhibition curated by Los Angeles-based artist Amir H. Fallah. Presented in the gallery's new project space, this exhibition features works by Daniel Gibson, Todd Gray, Amanda Ross-Ho, and Francis Upritchard. It will run concurrently with Fallah's solo exhibition Remember My Child..
12 SEPTEMBER - 31 OCTOBER 2020
Derived from a quote by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, the exhibition's title points to the exhibiting artist's vastly different use of imagery and materials to examine the nature of portraiture by moving beyond the physical representation of a particular subject. In dialogue with the themes of Fallah's solo exhibition, Remember My Child..., these artists explore what it means to make biographical work through symbols, archetypes, and surrogates, in an effort to challenge the nature of representation.
X–TRA ARTISTS AND RIGHTS
Ep 2: SUPERPOWERS AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES: DEFINING WHAT YOU WANT TO SUSTAIN
with Nao Bustamante, Todd Gray, Gelare Khoshgozaran, and Jennifer Moon.
Moderated by Mario Ontiveros
X–TRA ARTISTS AND RIGHTS
Ep 1: Living a Life While Decolonizing the Mind
with Jennifer Moon, Todd Gray, Nao Bustamante, Gelare Khoshgozaran
Moderated by Mario Ontiveros
Iggy Pop Tried to Kill Me
Todd Gray with Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle
Art Los Angeles Contemporary , Barkar Hangar, Santa Monica, January 27, 2017
Story by Todd Gray, Text by Max King Cap.
Euclidean Gris Gris Book
Friday February 14th | 12 PM – Book Signing
Todd Gray will be signing copies of 'Euclidean Gris Gris' during Frieze LA on the Paramount Studios NYC backlot
Todd Gray: Euclidean Gris Gris
Edited with introduction by Rebecca McGrew. Introduction by Hannah Grossman. Text by Todd Gray, Nana Adusei-Poku, M. Neelika Jayawardane, Carrie Mae Weems.
Photographic critiques of colonialism’s legacies, from a leading interrogator of cultural iconography. This is the most comprehensive publication to date of the multimedia works of American artist Todd Gray (born 1954). Superbly produced, with a two-piece foil-stamped cover, beautiful endpapers and an insert documenting a yearlong series of events inspired by Gray’s work, Euclidean Gris Gris features a selection of recent photographic works derived from his exploration of the legacies of colonialism in Africa and several other seminal works.
Visit artbook to purchase a copy of Todd Gray: Euclidean Gris Gris