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Todd Gray — Sketch (Versailles, Berlin, Lagos)
Todd Gray

Sketch (Versailles, Berlin, Lagos)

2020

Sketch (Versailles, Berlin, Lagos) brings together three archival pigment prints housed in a combination of artist-made and found frames, unified beneath a coat of UV varnish that lends the surface a quiet, almost ceremonial luminosity. Todd Gray constructs the work as a triangulated meditation on place and memory, invoking three cities whose histories carry distinct but entangled legacies of empire, modernism, and postcolonial identity. The layering of photographic image with the physical weight of varied framing is characteristic of Gray's practice, in which the container of an image is never incidental but functions as a second layer of meaning, complicating how a viewer enters the work. Gray, who divides his time between Los Angeles and Ghana, has long worked at the intersection of personal archive and cultural excavation, and this 2020 piece reflects that sustained inquiry into how images travel across geographies and accumulate new significance in transit. The title itself reads like a caption or a route, suggesting movement rather than fixity, a sketch being by nature provisional and open to revision. Measuring 68.6 by 80 by 3.8 centimeters, the work has a modest, intimate scale that rewards close attention, the depth of the framing giving it a sculptural presence that photographs of it cannot fully convey. Signed by the artist and presented courtesy of Gray and David Lewis, New York, this piece originates from the MoAD Benefit Auction, connecting its acquisition directly to the support of museum programming dedicated to the African diaspora. For collectors drawn to photography-based practices that move fluidly between the conceptual and the material, this work offers both formal intelligence and genuine historical weight.

Medium
Three archival pigment prints in artist's frames and found frames, UV varnish
Overall
Signed
Yes

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About this work

Todd Gray, Sketch (Versailles, Berlin, Lagos), 2020

Sketch (Versailles, Berlin, Lagos) brings together three archival pigment prints housed in a combination of artist-made and found frames, unified beneath a coat of UV varnish that lends the surface a quiet, almost ceremonial luminosity. Todd Gray constructs the work as a triangulated meditation on place and memory, invoking three cities whose histories carry distinct but entangled legacies of empire, modernism, and postcolonial identity. The layering of photographic image with the physical weight of varied framing is characteristic of Gray's practice, in which the container of an image is never incidental but functions as a second layer of meaning, complicating how a viewer enters the work. Gray, who divides his time between Los Angeles and Ghana, has long worked at the intersection of personal archive and cultural excavation, and this 2020 piece reflects that sustained inquiry into how images travel across geographies and accumulate new significance in transit. The title itself reads like a caption or a route, suggesting movement rather than fixity, a sketch being by nature provisional and open to revision. Measuring 68.6 by 80 by 3.8 centimeters, the work has a modest, intimate scale that rewards close attention, the depth of the framing giving it a sculptural presence that photographs of it cannot fully convey. Signed by the artist and presented courtesy of Gray and David Lewis, New York, this piece originates from the MoAD Benefit Auction, connecting its acquisition directly to the support of museum programming dedicated to the African diaspora. For collectors drawn to photography-based practices that move fluidly between the conceptual and the material, this work offers both formal intelligence and genuine historical weight.

Medium
Three archival pigment prints in artist's frames and found frames, UV varnish
Dimensions
overall: 68.6 x 80 x 3.8 cm
Year
2020
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
MoAD Benefit Auction

Related themes

Mohn Art Collective

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