Michael Ross

Michael Ross (b. 1954, Buffalo, New York) is an American sculptor known for his meticulously crafted, small-scale wall-mounted works. He received a BFA from the University at Buffalo in 1978 and an MFA from Columbia University, and has lived and worked in New York since 1979. Although he has also made conceptually based works including performance, mail art, video and audience-participation projects, since the early 1990s Ross has directed his focus toward small, precise wall-mounted sculptures created from scraps, unidentifiable hardware and miscellaneous things. His earliest small-scale sculpture consisted of a single upright thimble containing the dust from several rooms of his home. A small work made in 1994 offered a wry salute to the large-scale metal sculptures of Donald Judd, a dialogue he has continued in the Untitled (Judd) series. Over the years he has also made numerous tiny sculptures inspired by the Japanese fairy tales of Lafcadio Hearn. Because of their scale, the works draw attention to the selection of materials and to the importance those materials carry, whatever the size of the finished piece. Ralph Rugoff described them as "elegant, self-effacing works [that] indirectly raise the question of the relationship between scale and presence", and Ross has been called "the pioneer of the subversive small gesture". Ross's sculptures have been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including MoMA PS1 and the New Museum, New York; FRAC Bourgogne, France; the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan; and S.M.A.K., Ghent. In April 2026 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts. In 2026 he also presented the solo exhibition industria crepusculum at Galerie Timonier, New York, followed by a presentation at Basel Social Club (June 2026). Michael Ross lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.