Todd Gray

'Mining the Archive: S. Charles Lee, Architect' by Metro Art–commissioned artist Todd Gray (@toddgrayla ) layers archival drawings of the Saban Theatre (originally the Fox Wilshire Theatre, designed by renowned architect S. Charles Lee), inverted architectural blueprints, historic photographs, and drawings of the theater’s interiors.   These images are interwoven with striking textile patterns drawn from the many cultures that helped shape the surrounding neighborhoods near the new Wilshire/La Cienega Station.   Learn more at the link in bio 🔗   New D Line stations at La Brea, Fairfax, and La Cienega connect Mid-Wilshire and the Miracle Mile to Koreatown and Downtown LA— now open!

Sunday 5/17, 2:00, RSVP at LACMA website.

Art deco motifs, fossils and massive drawings of hands are among the installations that will greet riders passing through the three new stations on L.A. Metro’s D Line extension. The underground subway stations, which connect downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, are home to nine site-specific artworks by Mariana Castillo Deball, Eamon Ore-Giron, Ken Gonzales-Day, Todd Gray, Karl Haendel, Soo Kim, Fran Siegel, Susan Silton and Mark Dean Veca. The goal was to make the new public art a “world-class experience” for riders — one that matched the caliber of the acclaimed museums the new subway route makes accessible along Wilshire Boulevard, said Metro deputy executive officer Zipporah Yamamoto, who leads the agency’s public art program. “When you walk through the stations, you’re basically walking through a series of immersive artworks on every single level,” Yamamoto said. “It’s not like hanging paintings above a sofa … where the art comes in at the end.” The Times spoke with four artists whose work will be inside. Read the full story at @latimes 📷 Carlin Stiehl / For The Times

Portals features a new series of photographic collages by the LA-based artist, Todd Gray, that combine images of European gardens and Renaissance rooms with West African landscapes and traces of colonialism and slavery. It is always a joy visiting Perrotin’s beautiful space in Los Angeles. The exhibition will end on May 30, 2026. Gallery: @perrotin Artist: @toddgrayla

Todd Gray’s Diasporic Vision in Portals at @perrotin @toddgrayla layers numerous images to create narratives that weave through places and time. On view in his exhibition Portals at Perrotin Los Angeles are both small-scale studies and large-scale finished works. Todd Gray’s photo sculptures in Portals at Perrotin are narrated as small-scale studies and large-scale finished works. The differences are curious. The small pieces are intimate and draw viewers in as the imagery can be absorbed as a whole; the layers working together, though in separate found frames. Due to their size, the larger works appear more fragmented, while still cohering to create a narrative. In a recent conversation with LACMA (@lacma ) Director Michael Govan, Gray spoke about visual pleasure and his desire for the images to immediately captivate viewers because of their aesthetic beauty and formal inventiveness. After enticing viewers with his evocative sequences organized by shape and color relationships, he then invites them to delve further — to think about the layering within each assemblage and how the elements work together. He is interested in exploring the relationships between the places depicted (Ghana, Rome, France, as well as the United States), and their history within the Black diaspora. 📅 21 Mar 2026 – 30 May 2026 📍 Perrotin Los Angeles 🔗/network/features/2026/april/todd-grays-diasporic-vision-in-portals-at-perrotin 🖼️ Todd Gray, Paradox of Liberty (Monticello, Elmina, Akwidaa), 2026, Three UV pigment prints on Dibond in artist's frames, 140 x 94.3 x 6.7 cm, Unique at Perrotin Los Angeles. Courtesy to the artist and Perrotin Los Angeles 🖼️ Installation View of Todd Gray’s Portals at Perrotin Los Angeles. Courtesy to the artist and Perrotin Los Angeles 🖼️ Todd Gray, Ghost in the Machine (fever dreaming fear), 2026, Two UV pigment prints on Dibond in artist's frames, 140 x 94.3 x 3.8 cm, Unique at Perrotin Los Angeles. Courtesy to the artist and Perrotin Los Angeles

Get a rare inside look at the vision of artist Todd Gray ↑ Join us May 17 for a conversation between @toddgrayla and curator @tiffanyebarber about his newly commissioned work for LACMA, Octavia’s Gaze, and a new @metro.art.la commission for Wilshire/La Cienega station Following the talk, attendees can view Octavia’s Gaze and other artworks in the David Geffen Galleries. At 4 pm, Gray will lead a @metro.art.la tour at Metro’s Wilshire/La Cienega station, sharing his new public artwork Mining the Archive: S. Charles Lee, Architect RSVP at the 🔗 in bio

20 years in the making The David Geffen Galleries opens at @lacma LACMA On May 4th Designed by renowned architect Peter Zumthor, the oblong glass building unfolds as a continuous, elevated space. The visitor experiences the galleries as a series of interconnected geographical spaces. Hierarchies are eliminated from the display; favoring shifting relationships of light, space, and time. Swipe through some highlights Slides 1-2 recent acquisition: Scherezade Garcia’s evocative Baroque painting, Harvest of the Sea. Slide 3 Todd Gray’s brilliant commissioned piece, Octovia’s Gaze, features monumental three-dimensional assemblages of framed images—combining his photographs of landscapes, people, architectural details, and museum interiors. @toddgrayla Slide 4 Do Ho Suh’s (@dohosuhstudio ) translucent, embroidered reconstruction of a Seoul palace, seamlessly woven into the gallery Slide 5-6 Rafa Esparza’s We are the mountain, 2019 Slide 7 the Feathered Serpent Frottage 1 by Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball takes us on a voyage through historical narratives of the past reactivated through materials and stories. Slides 8-9 Photography from the collection. #LACMA #DavidGeffenGalleries #ArtExhibition #Architecture #peterzumthor

@theartnewspaper.official @lacma I still cherish the memory of meeting with 20+ curators last year, listening to the conceptual foundations for organizing the collection in the new David Geffen Galleries and reassuring them that my new commission will have the critique without sacrificing beauty. Throughout my decades long practice I’ve used aesthetics/beauty as the first visual utterance of a work, welcoming viewers into the first level of dialogue. Just underneath that pictorial representation a complex narrative of relations between histories, places and time begins unfolding. @perrotin @lehmannmaupin

Todd Gray’s “Portals” deepens his engagement with both colonialism and Afrofuturism. Rooted in his experiences while living abroad in Rome, "Portals" is an exploration of the echoes of colonial legacies. Right on its heels is the opening of the new David Geffen Galleries, where his 27-foot-long sculpture "Octavia's Gaze" is a part of the permanent collection. Drawing on his personal archive and unique artistic repertoire, he visualizes Black speculative thought and invites the audience to go somewhere new. You can visit “Portals” until May 30 every Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Read more at the link in bio. Want stories like this in your inbox? Comment "newsletter" and we'll DM you some of our best newsletters to sign up for.

Wilshire/La Cienega Station is almost ready for its debut. Get a sneak peek before the D Line Extension – Section 1 opens on May 8! @metrolosangeles is introducing three new stations in West LA. Take a deep dive within artworks sparked by the brilliance of culture and communities surrounding the station. 1. ‘Mining the Archive: S. Charles Lee, Architect' by Todd Gray, artist, features blueprint drawings of the Saban Theatre inverted into deep blues on glass and glass tiles. The artwork brings the stage to the station, where riders are invited to view the many layers of the communities that make up the very fabric of the neighborhood. 2. ‘Four Pleated Landscapes: Fossil Ground, Woven Cienega, Medicinal Flora, and Urban Desert Fauna’ by Mariana Castillo Deball, artist, was inspired by historical maps and the local terrain set in glass tiles, where riders can explore a layered collage of fossils, indigenous traditions, medicinal plants and native animals. 3. ‘Night / Quartz’ by Soo Kim, artist, outlines the veins of Wilshire Corridor, first photographed and cut to create stencil-like silhouettes in porcelain enamel steel. The cut-outs are layered with buildings from around the world that follows the rider into LA’s sprawling landscape. Stay tuned for another sneak peek of artworks along the D Line! 👀

“I see portals as gateways, wormholes, where you can enter into different periods of time…” – Todd Gray Have you walked through Todd Gray’s ‘Portals’ at Perrotin Los Angeles? Take a closer look here as Gray walks us through his exhibition and discusses the sketch for his monumental @LACMA commission ‘Octavia’s Gaze’ which greets visitors as they enter the museum’s new David Geffen Galleries. Visit ‘Portals’ at Perrotin Los Angeles until May 30. _ @toddgrayla #Portals #Perrotin #PerrotinLA #PerrotinLosAngeles

Spring issue @thepanafold interview with @jarlmohn and I discussing the MAC3 initiative between @hammer_museum @lacma and @moca