Patient with autism in locked cell, Psychiatric Hospital, Asuncion, Paraguay, 2003

For the past several decades, photographer Eugene Richards (American, b. 1944) has explored complicated subjects, including racism, poverty, emergency medicine, drug addiction, cancer, the American family, aging, the effects of war and terrorism, and the depopulation of rural America. His style is unflinching yet poetic, his photographs deeply rooted in the texture of lived experience. In his wide range of photographs, writings, and moving image works, he involves his audience in the lives of people in ways that are challenging, lyrical, melancholy, and beautiful. Ultimately, his works illuminate aspects of humanity that might otherwise be overlooked. For the exhibition, we asked Eugene Richards to share stories behind some of the photographs featured in his retrospective.