Menu

Artist Spotlight

Taryn Simon

June 23–29, 2021

A storyteller and researcher driven by the mutability of fact and the documentary potential of fiction, Taryn Simon directs our attention to systems of organization—bloodlines, circulating picture collections, mourning rituals, ceremonial flower arrangements—revealing the structures of power and authority hidden within. Working in photography, sculpture, text, sound, performance, and installation, she traces lineages of objects, families, nations, and histories.

Launched in spring 2020 as a weekly platform, the Artist Spotlight series is now in its second season and is presented as a regular part of the gallery’s programming. Each Artist Spotlight highlights work by an individual artist, alongside new editorial features and selected archival content.  

Artist Spotlight: Taryn Simon features a new work by the artist. For more information, please contact the gallery at collecting@gagosian.com.

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

Related News

Taryn Simon, Cutaways, 2012 © Taryn Simon

Video

Taryn Simon
Cutaways

Taryn Simon’s Cutaways (2012) is available online from June 23 through July 22 as part of Artist Spotlight: Taryn Simon. At the close of the taping of a video interview for Prime Time Russia in Moscow, Simon was asked to sit in silence and stare at the newscasters for several minutes so that the producers could gather additional footage for the editing process. Cutaways presents this footage as an autonomous work.

Taryn Simon, Cutaways, 2012 © Taryn Simon

View of Taryn Simon’s The Pipes (2016–21) prior to installation at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts. Artwork © Taryn Simon. Photo: Will McLaughlin, courtesy MASS MoCA

Permanent Installation

Taryn Simon
The Pipes

Taryn Simon’s large-scale outdoor sculpture The Pipes (2016–21) will be on long-term view at MASS MoCA, in North Adams, Massachusetts, starting on June 26, 2021. What began as an oversize concrete instrument for a cacophony of global mourning in Simon’s work An Occupation of Loss (2016) will be populated by the sounds, collective call-and-response, and movements of a living public. The eleven structures that make up the installation—which Simon designed in collaboration with Shohei Shigematsu of the architecture firm OMA—offer the public an immersive experience and a sacred space for reflection, impromptu performance, and stargazing.

View of Taryn Simon’s The Pipes (2016–21) prior to installation at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts. Artwork © Taryn Simon. Photo: Will McLaughlin, courtesy MASS MoCA

Still from “Taryn Simon on ‘Black Square’”

Video

Taryn Simon on “Black Square”

In this video produced by Artforum, Taryn Simon discusses her Black Square series (2006–), an ongoing project in which she photographs objects, documents, and individuals against a black field of precisely the same dimensions as Kazimir Malevich’s 1915 Suprematist work of the same name. Simon also speaks about the most recent addition to the series, Black Square XXIV (2020)—a portrait of Joe Biden, whom she photographed at the White House during the first term of his vice presidency, in 2009. Speaking in the days leading up to the 2020 US presidential election, she notes how this still-unfolding event had changed and would continue to change the ways we might view this image.

Still from “Taryn Simon on ‘Black Square’”

See all News for Taryn Simon

Museum Exhibitions

Taryn Simon, Agreement to develop Park Hyatt St. Kitts under the St. Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment Program. Dubai, United Arab Emirates, July 16, 2012, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 © Taryn Simon

On View

Taryn Simon in
Guest Relations

Through April 28, 2024
Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai
jameelartscentre.org

Guest Relations brings together artwork and archival and architectural research to explore the historical, political, social, and cultural transformations that accompany processes of intense tourism. Examining the transactional nature of modern hospitality, the exhibition considers hotels as sites of artistic investigation, tracing their origins in colonial grandeur and hubris to their current, often generic, ubiquity in the age of globalization. Work by Taryn Simon is included.

Taryn Simon, Agreement to develop Park Hyatt St. Kitts under the St. Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment Program. Dubai, United Arab Emirates, July 16, 2012, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 © Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Chapter XI, from the series A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII, 2008–11 © Taryn Simon

On View

Taryn Simon in
Don’t Forget to Call Your Mother

Through September 15, 2024
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
www.metmuseum.org

At a time when photographs are primarily shared and saved digitally, many artists are returning to the physicality of snapshots in albums or pictures in archives as sources of inspiration. Taking its title from a photograph by Maurizio Cattelan, the exhibition Don’t Forget to Call Your Mother brings together works in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from the 1970s to today. The selected works reflect upon the complicated feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality evoked by these physical artifacts, while underlining the power of the found object. Work by Taryn Simon is included.

Taryn Simon, Chapter XI, from the series A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII, 2008–11 © Taryn Simon

Installation view, Taryn Simon: Start Again the Lament, Cisternerne, Frederiksbergmuseerne, Frederiksberg, Denmark, March 17–November 30, 2024. Artwork © Taryn Simon

On View

Taryn Simon
Start Again the Lament

Through November 30, 2024
Cisternerne, Frederiksbergmuseerne, Frederiksberg, Denmark
frederiksbergmuseerne.dk

Start Again the Lament is an extensive sound installation by Taryn Simon broadcast into the subterranean urban dripstone cave of the Cisternerne. Performed by professional mourners, the work explores how people mourn individually and collectively, considering the anatomy of grief and whom we choose to guide us through it. These sonic rituals of loss and discontent—including northern Albanian, Wayuu, Greek Epirotic, and Yazidi laments—transform the exhibition space into an instrument echoing recitations with a reverberation of seventeen seconds.              

Installation view, Taryn Simon: Start Again the Lament, Cisternerne, Frederiksbergmuseerne, Frederiksberg, Denmark, March 17–November 30, 2024. Artwork © Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Agreement to form a Palestinian national unity government. Mecca, Saudi Arabia, February 8, 2007, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 © Taryn Simon

Closed

Taryn Simon in
Flower Power

September 29, 2023–January 7, 2024
Musée des impressionnismes Giverny, France
www.mdig.fr

This exhibition explores the symbolism of flowers, from antiquity to the present, through more than one hundred works, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, prints, books, and clothing. Flower Power is organized in thematic sections devoted to history and mythology, the relationship between science and art, religion, and politics and economy. This exhibition has traveled from Kunsthalle München in Munich, where it was titled Flowers Forever: Blumen In Kunst Und Kultur. Work by Taryn Simon is included.

Taryn Simon, Agreement to form a Palestinian national unity government. Mecca, Saudi Arabia, February 8, 2007, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 © Taryn Simon

See all Museum Exhibitions for Taryn Simon