Todd Gray, Color Iris Photo Print Conceptual Cartoon Toy Doll Figurine Photograph Todd Gray, c.1997

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From his series SHADOW CARTOONS. Color iris print, hand initialed in pencil, This is not numbered. It is on Somerset … Read more From his series SHADOW CARTOONS. Color iris print, hand initialed in pencil, This is not numbered. It is on Somerset watermarked archival paper Paper size is 30 X 22.25, images 22.75 x 18 with full margins. I believe these images were shown at Shoshana Wayne gallery in the late 1990's. from the LA Times review: Tweety Bird and Mickey Mouse find themselves in pretty racy company this month in an exhibition of Todd Gray’s monumental photographs at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Moody silver prints of the cartoon figurines, mostly in shadow, share space with blurry pictures of wind-up toys. Gray, 42, began photographing cartoon figurines in 1991, two years after completing his graduate degree at CalArts, a school founded by Walt Disney. Todd Gray (b. 1954, Los Angeles) is a conceptual artist based between Los Angeles and Ghana. Gray received both his BFA and MFA (he studied with Allan Sekula) from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and has risen to prominence as a photography-based conceptual artist, receiving a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, Italy in 2016 and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. Gray’s work has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions internationally. Most recently, in 2018, Gray’s work was included in “Public Fiction: The Conscientious Objector” at the MAK Center for Art & Architecture in Los Angeles, where he directed a new durational performance, and in the major summer group exhibition “Michael Jackson: On the Wall” at London’s National Portrait Gallery, which travels in 2019 to the Grand Palais, Paris; the Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn; and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland. In 2017, Gray had solo exhibitions: “My Life in the Bush with MJ and Iggy” at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Gray presented performance works at the Roy & Edna Disney Cal/Arts Theater, REDCAT, and as part of the 2016 Hammer Museum biennial exhibition “Made in LA: a, the, though, only” in Los Angeles. Todd Gray attended Cal Arts in the late 1970s and worked as Michael Jackson's official photographer from 1979-1984. Photographer Todd Gray worked with pop icon Michael Jackson for several years before Jackson requested that he become his personal photographer. A young black man not much older than Jackson at the time they met, their relationship would encompass the singer's performances with the Jacksons through the release of his smash solo albums Off the Wall and Thriller. His intimate, and joyful photograph of Michael taken over a span of 10 years reveal him at home, with his family and fans, in career-making live performances, and the on the "Beat It" video shoot. Gray’s career began as a teenager, becoming a music photographer for legends such as Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, the Doors and the Rolling Stones. Los Angeles-based artist Gray is known primarily for photography, performance, and sculpture works that explore contemporary and historical examinations of power in relationship to the African Diaspora. His work consists primarily of photographs from his own archive juxtaposed with one another, then mounted within found antique frames as a structuring device. In recent installations, he pairs photo images of Michael Jackson (Gray was Jackson’s photographer in the 1980s) with photographs of rural scenes in Ghana (where Gray maintains a studio) and formal gardens in Europe. He has exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem and been photographed by Andy Warhol. He was in the important show at Kunsthal KAdE of African American artists. Beauford Delaney, Romare Bearden Jacob Lawrence, Betye Saar, Benny Andrews, Gordon Parks, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley et al. Artist Carrie Mae Weems says of Gray’s work: "Todd has come to understand something about who we are ... through his decision to break the frame, to break the mold, and to then recombine, reconfigure, reimagine the consequences of history and the way in which it’s all framed and constructed.” He has been published in Italian Vogue and Zoom magazines. See less