Grey Crawford | Transfigurations (1973-75)

Opening: Friday, 21 February 6 - 8 pm
Exhibition: 22 February- 19 April 2025Persons Projects is proud to present, as part of the European Month of Photography in Berlin (EMOP), Grey Crawford’s third solo exhibition. His self-performances from the early 1970s encapsulate the spirit of an era in Southern California, in which Performance Art moved away from the platform of the audience and into the photographic framing of the moment. During this time, performance art can be best described as any type of self-absorbed activity that questioned the essence of sculpture by eliminating the object itself. The focus was on the body and its movement, and how these activities created conversations rather than answers. It was a period of experimentation, and Los Angeles - along with its extended suburbs - was the perfect place for these happenings to evolve. Local artists such as John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Chris Burden, and Judy Chicago were all crossing artistic boundaries, and opening up new opportunities that challenged the existing parameters of what the establishment considered to be art. Anywhere and everything became potential stages for artistic intervention. It was in this cultural setting that Grey Crawford’s performances began to evolve. His experiments incorporated locations ranging from the Mojave Desert to the infamous ceramic slip installations of Douglas Humble in his own home.