Charles Ross: Spectrum 14 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles is an exhibition in the PST ART: Art & Science Collide series. Spectrum 14 is a calibrated array of prisms that cast a dazzling display of luminous color across the Museum’s rotunda. Bands of spectral light traverse the space in relation to the sun, which follow a slightly different arc through the sky every day. Over time, Ross’s work changes in response to Earth’s rotational orbit, connecting us to the premodern experience of astronomical observation and calculation that defined cycles of days, seasons, and rituals. This project was commissioned for PST ART as part of the exhibition Lumen: The Art and Science of Light. This is the second “Rotunda Commission,” a series of art installations inspired by the Getty Museum’s collection, architecture, and site. The exhibition runs until September 13, 2026.
Charles Ross: Spectrum 14 / Getty Center, Los Angeles. October 13, 2024.
Charles Ross is an American contemporary artist born in 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is renowned for his innovative work that explores natural light, time, and planetary motion, blending art with scientific concepts. His practice spans multiple mediums, including large-scale prism and solar spectrum installations, “solar burns” created by focusing sunlight through lenses, dynamic paintings made with dynamite and powdered pigment, and his monumental earthwork, Star Axis, a naked-eye observatory in New Mexico that he has been constructing since conceiving it in 1971.
Ross emerged in the mid-1960s during the rise of minimalism and is considered a pioneer of “prism art”—a niche within that movement—as well as a key figure in the land art movement. His work often incorporates geometry, seriality, and refined forms to reveal optical, astronomical, and perceptual phenomena, reflecting his background in mathematics (he earned a BA from UC Berkeley in 1960) and sculpture (MA from UC Berkeley in 1962). Notable projects include the Dwan Light Sanctuary (1996), a collaboration with Virginia Dwan featuring prisms that project moving solar spectra, and Sunlight Convergence/Solar Burn: The Equinoctial Year (1971–1972), a series of 366 solar-burned planks documenting a year of sunlight.
His career began in New York, where he was part of the influential artist cooperative at 80 Wooster Street, contributing to the development of SoHo as an art hub. Ross has exhibited at prestigious venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, and his works are held in collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2011, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow. Today, he splits his time between SoHo, Manhattan, and New Mexico, where he continues to work on Star Axis, nearing completion after over five decades.
