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Todd Gray (born 1954) works in photography, performance and sculpture as a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California and Akwidaa, Ghana.

Writing in the catalogue for the exhibition Black is, Black Ain't at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, Amy M. Mooney writes "critics have noted that Gray's work is "fluent in cultural iconography, driven by introspection, and steeped in issues of corporate politics and racial identity" and that his self-portraits thwart a traditional read of the exterior likeness". Gray describes himself as an artist and activist who primarily focuses on issues of race, class, gender, and colonialism.

Contents

 * 1Early life and education
 * 2Early career
 * 3Exhibitions
 * 4Collections
 * 5References
 * 6External sources

Early life and education[edit]
Gray born was born in 1954 in Los Angeles, California. He got his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, California in 1979 and his Master of Fine Arts from CalArts in 1989.

Early career[edit]
Gray first turned onto photography in high school, when he took a class in it. Beginning in the early 1970s while still in high school, Gray worked as a commercial photographer in the music industry, photographing rock and R&B acts such as the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight. Gray shot his first album cover at age 17. He continued to do so throughout the 1970s, allowing him to pay for college and then art school. To date, Gray has shot over 100 album covers.

Gray first met Michael Jackson in 1974 when he photographed the Jackson 5 for Soul Newspaper, and then again when he photographed Michael during a trip to Disneyland. Gray was then asked by Michael Jackson to become his personal photographer, which he did in the period 1979–1984, during the time of Jackson's landmark albums Off the Wall and Thriller. When Gray asked Michael's manager Ron Weisner why Michael wanted him specifically, Ron responded that Michael said "I like Todd because he doesn't talk much." Gray described Jackson as being "very sensitive to the overt racism of the American press, well aware that a caption can completely alter the context of a photograph, perpetuating negative stereotypes. He scrutinized every photograph I made and only the images he approved were released to the press."

Exhibitions[edit]
Gray has exhibited work at Meliksetain Briggs Gallery, Los Angeles. Gray's past solo and group exhibitions include: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Studio Museum, Harlem, NY; USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Luckman Gallery, Cal State University, Los Angeles; California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Tucson Museum of Art; Detroit Museum of Art; Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, among others. Some of his performance works have been presented at The Roy & Edna Disney Cal/Arts Theater; (REDCAT), Los Angeles; Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, and the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles. [2] For his 2016 exhibition A Place That Looks Like Home "re-frames and re-contextualizes images from his personal archive that spans over forty years of his career as a photographer, sculptor and performance artist." In his 2017 exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora, Gray explored Michael Jackson in terms of "mental colonialism." In 2017, Gray also created Pluralities of Being which was exhibited from August 31st to October 7th in the Gallery MOMO in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was Gray's first solo exhibit in South Africa and featured work he created during his residency at the NIROX Foundation's sculpture park in Johannesburg. Pluralities of Being was next exhibited at the Palm Springs Art Museum from December 15, 2018 to April 7, 2019.

In 2018, Gray's work was included in Michael Jackson: On the Wall at the National Portrait Gallery in London which ran until October 21, 2018. in In 2019, Gray was featured as an artist in the Whitney Museum of American Art's 2019 Biennial. [1] Gray's most recent work Cartesian Gris Gris explores "the continued fallout of European colonialism in Africa." This collection of photographs was exhibited at the David Lewis Gallery in New York City in July of 2019.

Todd Gray was featured as one of the artists in the Whitney Museum of American Art's 2019 Biennial Exhibition. Gray's most recent work Cartesian Gris Gris explores "the continued fallout of European colonialism in Africa." This collection of photographs was exhibited at the David Lewis Gallery in New York City in July of 2019.

Collections[edit]
Gray's work is held in the following permanent public collections: the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco, CA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles CA, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, CA, the University of Connecticut, Hartford, CT, the California Community Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, and the University of Parma, Parma, Italy.

Other works [edit]
On October 21, 2009, Gray published a book of rare photos titled Michael Jackson: Before He Was King.