Todd Gray: Ruth K. Franklin Lecture

The Cantor is thrilled to present Todd Gray as the 2025 Ruth K. Franklin Lecture on the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, in conjunction with the presentation of his work in the group exhibition Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene. Gray’s artist talk will be followed by a conversation with Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Working between Los Angeles and Ghana, Gray delves into the diasporic dislocations and cultural connections linking Western hegemony with West Africa. His interdisciplinary practice spans photography, performance, and sculpture. Through his unique process of layering images from his personal archive with African and European landscapes, Gray challenges traditional narratives and examines the enduring impacts of colonial power and racial identity.

In his series Euclidean Gris Gris, Gray juxtaposes imagery of Enlightenment-era European gardens with rural African scenes, constellations, and galaxies, proposing a sculptural-photographic reconsideration of the harmful ideologies and environmental practices tied to Enlightenment philosophies. These works provoke critical conversations about the socio-environmental consequences of an epoch in which humans have had an outsized impact on the Earth’s climate. 

Gray’s work from this series, Cosmic Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler) (2019), is on view in Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene through August 3, 2025. Just over 20 years ago, scientists introduced the term Anthropocene to denote a new geological epoch marked by human activity. Comprised of 44 photo-based artists working in a variety of artistic methods from studios and sites across the globe, Second Nature explores the complexities of this proposed new age: vanishing ice, rising waters, and increasing resource extraction, as well as the deeply rooted and painful legacies of colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma.

All public programs at the Cantor Arts Center are always free! Space for this program is limited; advance registration is recommended. Those who have registered will have priority for seating.

We gratefully acknowledge support from the Ruth K. Franklin Lecture and Symposium Fund.

Todd Gray (b. 1954, Los Angeles, California, lives and works in Los Angeles, California and Akwidaa, Ghana) received both his BFA and MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California in 1979 and 1989, respectively. Select group exhibitions of his work include Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2019); Made in LA 2016, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016). He is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Rome Prize Fellowship, Visual Arts, American Academy in Rome (2022–23); John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts (2018); Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowship, The Rockefeller Foundation (2016). Gray’s work is held in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Los Angeles County Museum; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; and others.

Marshall N. Price is the Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and serves as adjunct faculty in the university’s Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies. He received a PhD in Art History from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He has organized numerous exhibitions including Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making, 1948–1960, Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush, Colour Correction: British and American Screenprints, 1967–75, Jeffrey Gibson: Said the Pigeon to the Squirrel, and John Cage: The Sight of Silence, among others. 

Price is the co-curator of Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene along with Jessica May, Executive Director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition is co-organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, The Trustees of Reservations, Lincoln, Massachusetts. The Cantor Arts Center presentation is curated by Maggie Dethloff, Assistant Curator of Photography and New Media.