Toni Ross teaches and researches in the areas of modern and contemporary art, philosophies of aesthetics, photography theory, contemporary art and politics, and moving image art. In 2014 she was appointed Sydney reviewer for Artforum magazine, and has published numerous catalogue essays and reviews on Australian contemporary art. Much of her research of recent years has been focused on Jacques Rancière's thinking of politics and aesthetics on which she has published numerous essays since 2006. In 2012 she published a chapter on Steve McQueen's film Hunger Framing Film (Intellect Books), and in 2013 was included in the anthology Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic, eds. James Elkins and Harper Montgomery (The Pennsylvannia State University Press). Her most recent book chapter publication is ‘Suspending Productive Time: Some Photographs by Gabriel Orozco and Jacques Rancière’s Thinking of Modern Aesthetics’ in the anthology Photography and Ontology: Unsettling Images, Routledge, 2018. Her current research includes a study of recent debates in photography theory and the art of Thomas Demand, a project on contemporary art engaged with wellness culture and the accelerated pace of life associated with neoliberal capitalism, and research into contemporary moving image art that addresses ecological crisis.

Since 2005 Toni Ross has supervised to completion 10 PhDs in Art Theory and Fine Arts. These include practice based and art theory/history projects, and range across topics such as concepts of aesthetics and community in contemporary art theory; the posthumous studio in contemporary art; inter-medial translations between painting and new media; cartoonish painting and internet culture; representing war in contemporary art photography; modern and contemporary food art; experimental design and avant-gardism. In 2018 she received a Postgraduate Research Supervisor award from UNSW Arc Postgraduate Council, and in 2019 the UNSW Art & Design Dean's award for excellence in higher degree supervision.

Select Publications

Ross, Toni. (2018) ‘Suspending Productive Time: Some Photographs by Gabriel Orozco and Jacques Rancière’s Thinking of Modern Aesthetics,’ in Photography and Ontology: Unsettling Images, eds. Donna West Brett and Natalya Lusty, Routledge, History of Photography series,132-143.

Ross, Toni. (2018) ‘Dilemmas of Emotional Empathy: Archie Moore’s A Home Away from Home (Bennelong/Vera’s Hut)’, Archie Moore: 1970-2018, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane, 22-29.

Ross, Toni. (2015) ‘Embodied reason, functionalist magic, animate objects: Mikala Dwyer’s contribution to the modern sculptural imagination.’ Mikala Dwyer: Drawing Down the Moon, Brisbane: Brisbane, IMA, 77-87.

McNamara, A. & Ross, T. (2015) 'Sobre a especificidade do meio e o cruzamento de disciplinas na arte, uma entrevista com Jacques Ranciere,' transl. R. Carrijo, Ensaia (revista dedramaturgia, performance e escritas multiplas) No 1.  

Ross, Toni (2013) ‘The elusive “beyond” of aesthetic and anti-aesthetic,’ Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic, Eds. James Elkins & Harper Montgomery, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 159-163.

Ross, Toni (2013) ‘Encountering Mikala Dwyer’s Art with Eva Hesse and Minimalism,’ Mikala Dwyer – Goldene Bend’er, Melbourne: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 43-47.

Ross, Toni. (2012) ‘Resonances of Ninteenth-Century Realism in Steve McQueen’s Hunger.’ Framing Film: Cinema and the Visual Arts. eds. Steven Allen & Laura Hubner. Bristol: Intellect Books, 165-184.

Ross, Toni. (2011) ‘Departures from postmodern doctrine in Jacques Rancière’s refiguring of the politics of artistic modernity.’ Transformations Journal of Media and Culture, ‘Rancière: Politics, Art & Sense,’ Issue 19.

Ross, Toni. (2010) ‘Image, montage.’ Jacques Rancière: Key concepts, ed. Jean-Philippe Deranty, Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing, 151-168.

Ross, Toni. (2009) ‘From Classical to Postclassical Beauty: Institutional Critique and Aesthetic Enigma in Louise Lawler’s Photography,’ B. Hinderliter, W. Kaizen, J. Mansoor, V. Maimon, S. McCormick, eds. Communities of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics, Durham, Duke University Press, 79-110.

Ross, Toni, (2007) ‘Linkages Between Aesthetic Autonomy and Discipline Hybridity in the Art of Andrea Zittel,’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 8:1, 109-124.

Ross, Toni & McNamara, Andrew, (2007) ‘On Medium Specificity and Discipline Crossovers in Modern Art:  interview with Jacques Rancière,’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 8:1, 99-107.

Ross, Toni (2006) ‘Aesthetic Autonomy and Interdisciplinarity: A Response to Nicolas Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics,’” Journal of Visual Arts Practice 5:3,167-181.

Recent Art Criticism

'Sydney: Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Sullivan + Strumpf, Artforum, 58:5, January 2020, 238.

'Sydney: "The Housing Question," Penrith Regional Gallery, Artforum, 58:2, October 2019, 244.

'Sydney: "Just Not Australian," Artspace,' Artforum, 57:9, May 2019, 306.

‘Sydney, Yvonne Todd, Fine Arts, Sydney,’ Artforum, November 2018.

‘Sydney, Anne Zahalka, Dominik Mersch Gallery,’ Artforum, October 2018.

‘Sydney, Grant Stevens, Sullivan+Strumpf’, Artforum, 56:10, Summer 2018, 333. ‘Stimulating thinking, feeling and seeing: Gerhard Richter at GOMA,’ Art Monthly Australasia, Issue 305, March 2018, 56-60.

‘Sydney, Mikala Dwyer, Art Gallery of New South Wales,’ Artforum, 56:5, January 2018, 237.

‘Sydney, Jenny Watson, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia,’ Artforum, 56:3, November 2017, 268.

‘Sydney, The National: New Australian Art,’ Artforum, 55:10, Summer 2017, 385.

'Sydney, Artspace, "The Public Body .01"', Artforum International, Jan 2017. 

"Actions and Reflections: 'Space to Dream: Recent Art from South America'", Art Monthly, October 2016. 

'Linda Marrinon, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery', Artforum, New York, Oct 2016.

'Poetics of the Performing Body: Angelica Mesiti's The Colour of Saying', in Telling Tales: Excursions in Narrative Form, ed. Rachel Kent, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 2016.

'20th Biennale of Sydney,' Artforum International, New York, May 2016.

 'Angelica Mesiti, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney,' Artforum International, Sep 2015.

'Pat Brassington, Stills Gallery, Sydney', Artforum International, Nov 2014.

'19th Biennale of Sydney', Artforum International, Jun 2014. 

Grants

2011 Research Grant, Shpilman Institute for Photography.

2009 Australia Council, New Work Grant.

2003 ARC Discovery Grant.

Invited Speaker at Art Symposia and Conferences

2016 'Photography/Ontology' Symposium, University of Sydney. 

2014 'The Image in Question,' Conference, SCA, University of Sydney.

2013 '13 Rooms Salon' 13 Rooms, Kaldor Public Art Projects, Sydney.

2013 IASKA Spaced: Art Out of Place, Fremantle Arts Centre.

2008 Design as Ideology, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Recent Conference Papers

Ross, Toni. (2019) 'Slow Aesthetics and Environmental Awareness in Daniel Zimmermann's Walden (2018), Art Association of Australia and New Zealand annual conference, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 3-6 December 2019.

Ross, Toni. (2019) 'Slowness as Eco-critical strategy in David Claerbout's The Pure Necessity (2016),' Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of Brighton, 4–6 April 2019.

Ross, Toni. (2016) ‘Can photography depict structural conditions of labour under capitalism?: recent works by Victoria Binschtok and Brian Ulrich’. AAANZ Annual Conference, ANU, Canberra, Dec 2016.

Ross, Toni. (2015) ‘Rancière’s Aisthesis and the ‘politics’ of unpurposive action.’ AAANZ Annual Conference, Brisbane, Qld, Nov 2015.

Ross, Toni (2014) ‘Questioning Debordian orthodoxy on spectacle culture: Thomas Demand’s High Line Billboard project (2013).’ Art Association of Australia and New Zeland, Annual Conference, 5-8 December, Launceston.

Ross, Toni (2014) ‘The Interlacing of Intention and Automatism in the Photographic Image: a critical response to Walter Benn Michaels’ ‘Neoliberal Aesthetics: Fried, Rancière and the Form of the Photograph,’ The Image in Question, SCA, University of Sydney, 1-3 August 2014.

Ross, Toni (2011) ‘The assertion and suspension of contact in the art of Thomas Demand’, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand 2011 Annual Conference, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington New Zealand, 7-9 December 2011.

Ross, Toni (2010) ‘Intersections of high and low in the realist art of Olga Chernysheva,’ European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM), Bi-annual Conference, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, 9-11 Sept. 2010.

Ross, Toni (2009) ‘Resonances of 19^th Century Painterly Realism in Steve McQueen’s Hunger,’ Framing Film: Cinema and the Visual Arts, The University of Winchester, 4-6 September 2009.

Completed Postgraduates

Pamela Gaunt, M Art Theory, 'The Decorative in Twentieth Century Art: a story of decline and resurgence', 2005.

Uta Daur, PhD Art Theory, 'The Melodramatic Imagination in the Art of Tracey Moffatt,' 2008.

Natalya Hughes, PhD Art Theory, 'The Decorative, the Grotesque and the Explicit in the work of Kara Walker and Aubrey Beardsley,' 2010.

Katherine Moline, PhD Art Theory, 'The Relationship Between Experimental Design and the Artistic Avant-Gardes 1998-2007,' 2011.

Marco Marcon, PhD Art Theory, 'The Relationship Between Concepts of Aesthetics and Community in Recent Art Theory and Criticism,' 2014.

Kylie Banyard, PhD Fine Arts, 'Imagining Alternatives: gazing as the contemporary world through figurations of the outmoded and the anachronistic,’ 2014.

Emma Crott, PhD Art Theory, 'The Aftermath of War in Contemporary Art Photography,' 2018.

Amber Boardman, PhD Fine Arts, ‘Laughing at Our Inadequacies: Contemporary Cartoonish Painting, Internet Culture and the Tragicomic Character.’ 2018.David Eastwood, PhD Fine Arts, 'Studio Afterlife: the function of the posthumous studio in contemporary art.' 2018.

Miguel Valenzuela, PhD Fine Arts, 'Artistic Uses of Cathode Ray Tube Technology in the Digital Age.’ 2018.

Peter Alwast, PhD Fine Arts, 'Painting by Other Means: contemporary intermedia tendencies involving painting and digital media practices.'

Current Postgraduates

Megan Fizell, M Art Theory, 'Eating Art: motivating factors in the use of edible materials in modern and contemporary art.'

Kirsten Drewes, PhD Fine Arts, 'Psychological Resonances of Soft Forms in Modern and Contemporary Art.'

Gerwyn Davies, PhD Fine Arts, 'Strategies of Camp in Photographic Self-Representation.'

Charles Sorrell, PhD Art History, ‘Changing Perceptions of La Nouvelle Femme in Print Culture of the French Third Republic: 1870-1914.’

Miska Mandic, PhD Fine Arts, 'Pleating Time: reframing film audience relationships to ecological crisis.'