Biomythography

Artist Statement

 

Todd Gray disrupts and questions the role photography plays in the transmission of history and cultural identity.  Gray’s fluency in pop culture and contemporary art raise questions around the cultural merit of photography as both a personal and universal method for recording history and identity. This leads us to a more pointed critique of the corporate capitalization of black identity within popular culture. The photo work is collaged directly onto the gallery walls, colliding with drawings. Gray reframes and reveals an intimate and collective post-colonial, transatlantic memory.

 

Bio

 

Todd Gray received both his BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). He has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at the Luckman Gallery, Cal State University, Los Angeles, Studio Museum, Harlem, NY, USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, Tucson Museum of Art, Detroit Museum of Art, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago among others. Performance works have been presented at institutions such as the Roy & Edna Disney Cal/Arts Theater, REDCAT, Los Angeles, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, and the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles. He was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Grant in 2016. Gray was selected to be included in the third edition of the Hammer Museum's biennial Made in LA curated by Aram Mosheyedi and Hamza Walker in June 2016, where he presented a performance work for the duration of the exhibition, outside the confines of the museum space. In 2017, Gray's solo exhibitions included  “My Life in the Bush With MJ and Iggy”, at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, CA and “Pluralities of Being” at Gallery Momo in Johannesburg, So. Africa. In 2018, Gray has an upcoming solo exhibition at Meliksetian | Briggs, Los Angeles, CA.

             

 

Artist Website