For the past six years, Richard Ross has been collecting images of places of power - interrogation rooms, holding rooms, and isolation cells - as a kind of survey of the “architecture” of power and force.  His current exhibition of these photographs titled Architecture of Authority is on view at Acme gallery through July 28, 2007.

There are more than a few reasons why you should not miss this exhibition, but the three that come to mind are the timeliness of the subject matter, the intelligent way in which Ross has broadened the scope of his project, and the sheer, sometimes horrifying beauty of the images themselves.

To take these in reverse order, by “horrifying beauty” I am referring to the fact that a US Customs isolation room on the Mexican border, a Montessori school, and the set of Law and Order are presented with the same bright precision.  In so doing, Ross creates a connection between the three that feels horrifying and beautiful at the same time.  All of the prints in the show are large (without being overwhelming or fussy) and draw you in, even if what you’re looking at is a lethal-injection chamber or a booking bench at an LAPD office from which handcuffs on long chains hang almost like jewelry.

This kind of aesthetic remove from the subject matter only makes it more charged, however, as it becomes clear that the kind of space designed to give or take away power from the people who inhabit those rooms contains a kind of simple universality.  The way that most of the photos are presented — sober, straightforward interiors that only retain suggestions of their use - recalls minimal art to a certain degree, and shows that the same kind of brutal utilitarianism found at Gauntanamo can also be found at a local police station or DMV office.