Richard Ross

His latest project, Girls in Justice, focuses on girls in juvenile detention and treatment in the U.S. and will be shown at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa in January 2015.

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is photography. Places of work recorded in the authority are Santa Barbara. Employment is recorded with University of California, Santa Barbara. Work by Richard Ross is recorded in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Kunstraum Buchberg. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

Ross's first book, Museology, a photographic examination of museums and the display of art and historical objects, was published by Aperture Foundation in 1989 and features an introduction by Marcia Tucker, founder of the New Museum and former curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and an essay by David Mellor, art historian and curator. His second book, Gathering Light explores natural and artificial light and its intrinsic relationship to photography itself through photographs of objects and places from all over the world. The book featured an introduction by Dave Hickey, a prominent art and culture critic, and an essay by Eduardo Cadava, faculty in the Department of English at Princeton University. • Illustration — Ross focused on juvenile incarceration for Juvenile in Justice (2012) Published in 2004, Ross's third book, Waiting for the End of the World is compiled of photographs of bomb and other underground shelters the world over, including an underground city in Beijing, China. Michael Darling, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, wrote about Waiting for the End of the World that "Ross's images of bomb shelters represent a crushing indictment of the current state of world affairs as well as a clarion call to action." The book features an interview with Richard Ross by Sarah Vowell, a New York Times best selling author. After Waiting for the End of the World Ross published three books compiling successful U.S. patent applications from the last century; Patently Ridiculous, Patently Erotic and Patently Christmas. The books were published by Plume. In 2007, with Aperture Foundation, Ross published Architecture of Authority. The book was included in Photo District News best books of 2007 and the accompanying exhibition was number 10 on the Artforum list of best shows of 2007. The book features an essay by John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine. Ross's first book covering the U.S. juvenile justice system, Juvenile in Justice, was published in 2012 with a foreword by Ira Glass and an essay by Bart Lubow. The nearly 150 images in the book were made over 5 years of visiting more than 1,000 youth confined in more than 200 juvenile institutions in 31 states.

Since 1977 Ross has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He teaches photography and photojournalism.