Wholesale Grey Crawford, Chroma, 1978–85, Vol 1

In 1978 Grey Crawford created a body of colour photographic work that was so radical in its aesthetic and technique that few people to this day understand how it was made. Chroma documents late 70s Los Angeles in a period of radical urban transformation. Scenes of vernacular architecture, demolition sites and everyday places are contrasted with graphic forms that float on the surface and sit within the image. A student at Claremont and LA native, Crawford’s work shows the influence of radical Californian painters such as Karl Benjamin and John McLaughlin in the medium of photography. While Light and Space, Minimalism, and Geometric Abstraction, existed firmly within painting and sculpture, Crawford showed the possibilities of photography as an art form and blurred the boundaries between photography, sculpture and installation.