I think this show is better than it might seem on superficial first glance. Richard Ross’s photographs of institutional spaces include interrogation rooms, prisons and execution chambers. But also high-school corridors, hotel phone booths and religious spaces. If you take these connections too seriously, it seems like Ross is making silly, agit-prop connections. But if you stand back and allow the show some irony space, it begins to make distinctions that are much more interesting. The show, Architecture of Authority, first appeared in New York and is now in Washington, DC, at the National Building Museum. And as most things at the NBM, it’s worth some attention. My review is here.
