Ashley Crawford (journalist)

Dr Ashley Robert Crawford (Born 1960) is an Australian freelance cultural critic, author, essayist, arts journalist and academic.
== Education ==
Crawford completed a Ph.D. at Melbourne University in 2016.
== Life and Career ==
Born in Melbourne in 1960 he began his career as a cadet journalist working at The Herald (Melbourne) in 1978 where he experienced the gamut of journalistic practice including court reporting, police rounds, politics and finance before briefly settling into the position of rock critic 
Dissatisfied with the conservative nature of newspaper publishing in 1980 he started a monthly culture magazine The Virgin Press. Changing the name to Tension (1983-1990) the magazine garnered industry accoladesThe Australian Writers and Art Directors Award for illustration and design (1986), The Melbourne Art Directors Awards for illustration and design (1987) and the Melbourne Art Directors Award for Best Printed Item (1989). and contributions from notable writers and artists. During the 1980s he also worked as: a consultant for Lees/West contemporary music touring company; the Director of Artists’ Week for the 1986 Adelaide Festival; the Editor of Video Week; a Senior Consultant for WMCC Public Relations; and Assistant Director at the fledgling Australian Centre For Contemporary Art (ACCA).
In 1990 he was offered the position of Communications Manager at The Australian Commission for the Future and editor of the organisation’s magazine 21•C that covered technology, science and culture. Neuromancer author William Gibson proclaimed that: “21•C is, flat out, the best looking and most determinedly eclectic pop-futurological publication in the world.” While J.G. Ballard proclaimed the magazine a “brilliant collection of articles that read like news bulletins from the future.”
In 1993 he established the international art magazine World Art and moved to Amsterdam. In 1996, Wired magazine commented that: “While most art mags cover the dead and the nearly dead of the art establishment, World Art plays with high-voltage wires in the rain… Young and experimental, this is the art forum to be in.”
After a stint as Executive Producer for ITVWorld.com Crawford moved to New York in 2001 to take on the role of Executive Editor at Artbyte magazine. 
In 2003 Crawford returned to Australia as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson overseeing the New Art series. As one of Australia's pre-eminent cultural writers and curators he has overseen a variety of publications and exhibitions.Including overseeing shows at The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, the TarraWarra Biennial, the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, as part of the Adelaide Festival 2016, Adelaide, the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin and the White Night Festival, Melbourne. His writing appears in national and global newspapers and magazines, and in online forums.
Crawford first visited the Gunbalanya, Northern Territory of Arnhem Land in 1998 with artists David Larwill, Peter Walsh and Mark Schaller working to raise awareness about the then-proposed uranium mine in Kakadu National Park. He has returned regularly, helping to organize artists’ camps to the region.
Between 2005 and 2018 he organised several international artist exchanges and tours, encompassing Central Australia, America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
In 2010 he co founded a hybrid art fair in Melbourne - NOTFAIR 
His Ph.D. thesis was published by Palgrave MacMillan, New York, as Dark Gnosis: Religious Imaging in Millennialist America (2018)
== Books (selected) ==
Cultural Studies
* 2018: Dark Gnosis: Religious Imaging in Millennialist America (Palgrave MacMillan, New York)
* 1997: Transit Lounge: Wake Up Calls and Traveller’s Tales from the Future. co-editor, (Gordon & Breach, Sydney/Amsterdam)
Visual Arts (Australia)
* 2017: Gareth Sansom Transformer, with Sebastian Smee (National Gallery of Victoria)
* 2017: Photo by Martin Kantor, with Richard Guilliatt (Hardie Grant)
* 2016: Transformations: The Art of Sonia Payes (Thames & Hudson)
* 2012: The Art of James Davis (Australian Scholarly Publishing)
* 2011: First Life (Xin Dong Cheng Art Space, Beijing/24HR Art, Darwin)
* 2009: Rhys Lee, with Edward Colless (Spencer Design, Melbourne)
* 2007: Stephen Bush: Gelderland (Sante Fe Museum, New Mexico)
* 2006: Directory of Australian Art (Craftsman House)
* 2003: Lines of Fire: Tim Storrier’s Works on Paper (Thames & Hudson).
* 2002: Wimmera: The Work of Philip Hunter (Thames & Hudson).
* 2002: Lake Eyre and Beyond: The William Creek Series (Craftsman House).
* 2001: Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley – Updated and Revised, with Ray Edgar, (Craftsman House)
* 1997: Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley, with Ray Edgar, (Craftsman House)
== Personal Life ==
He is the son of Bob "King" Crawford, a noted comedian, writer, composer, painter, and colourful identityhttps://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/artist-bob-king-crawford-pushes-his-design-for-a-kangaroo-flag-with-no-union-jack/news-story/1a86e2dcc04cfb090989cf211ed840a5.
Category:Australian critics
Category:Australian writers
Category:Australian essayists