El Mirage #01, 1976

From the series El Mirage

Silver Gelatin print

50,5 x 66 cm

Edition of 12

Grey Crawford’s El Mirage (1975-78) series beginning in the mid-70s, consisted of numerous experiments using metal etching plates, glass panes, mirrors, wood, and darkroom manipulations in various performance-like positions on Mojave Desert lake bed in Southern California. What makes these early images important is how Crawford utilized the photographic process as a way to alter the physical scale of his angular configurations. The significance of these sculptures and visual performances, as pointed out by Lyle Rexer, "are not in what they reveal about a specific event or situation, but in how they reflect on everything around or beyond it: photography, sculpture, space, place, and perception.” Crawford’s use of different materials reflects his innate sense of activism, making art through the act of doing. His El Mirage series combines his knowledge of art history with his use of Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square to a more collaborative dialogue with his contemporaries at the time, such as Robert Smithsonian, Michael Heizer, and Carl Andre.