Indiana 2011

Richard Ross made "Indiana" with a camera, and what strikes me is how he transformed the mundane into something so evocative. The choice of the subject, that peachy colour, it is a very particular choice, and makes the image feel so claustrophobic, almost oppressive. I can imagine Richard Ross positioning his camera just so, probably after scouting the space, making endless adjustments. The fluorescent light is so dominant, it almost washes out everything. There's a stillness to the composition, a sense of deliberate placement that reminds me of some of the formalist photographers, people who were interested in geometry. But Ross, it seems to me, is also interested in emotion, how do we respond to space? In this work, I'd argue, he is really getting at what it means to be human. Ross, like all artists, is in conversation with those who came before, trying to make sense of our world.