page_title: Todd Gray (artist)
section_title: Early career
hierarchical_section_title: Todd Gray (artist) / Early career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Gray's work on display at the Whitney Museum of Art 's Biennial Collection 2019
context_page_description: Todd Gray 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, and uses these lenses to challenge binaries in the past and present. In general, his work aims to challenge the viewer both by what he is including and what he is leaving out.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Photograph of Gray's work on display at the Whitney Museum of Art 's Biennial Collection 2019
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