Taryn Simon is seated in a conference room at the Guggenheim, looking dazed. Her new show, Father Country I Do Love You, opens in under three weeks. It\u2019s a big deal, the first monographic exhibition by a photography-based artist in the iconic spiral rotunda, and the largest debut of new work ever staged at the museum. There\u2019s still a lot of work to be done.<\/p>\n
Downstairs, the lobby is being transformed into the Bangkok living room of Jim Thompson, a silk businessman-slash-spy who disappeared in 1967. Simon\u2019s father, a US government worker, was living in Thailand at the time and figured that the Chinese got him, if not a tiger. When Simon was nine, the father and daughter recreated Thompson\u2019s famous wood-panelled den back in Long Island. \u201cAnd then I built it here with fake teak,\u201d she says, voice wilting. \u201cIt\u2019s driving me nuts. I\u2019ve spent so much time trying to make non-teak look like teak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attention to detail is a defining quality of Simon\u2019s practice, which spans photo, video, performance, sculpture and bookmaking. An academic\u2019s artist, she applies journalistic rigor and archival methodology to art photography, turning research, preparation and curiosity into artistic mediums of their own. Developed over 10 years, Father Country is based on Simon\u2019s extended correspondence with a retired federal agent. She follows the ripples of this middleman figure, identifying witnesses \u2013 tangential or immediate, innocent or otherwise \u2013 to acts of espionage, conspiracy and violence. \u201cI thought his life was unbelievable,\u201d she says, \u201cbut anybody\u2019s is when you dig into it, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Installation view, Taryn Simon | Father Country I Do Love You Photograph: David Heald<\/p>\n
Father Country may be Simon\u2019s most ambitious work yet, which is saying something. She has spent 25 years using a symbiosis of image and text to examine systems of information, organization and power from borders to botany to genealogy. Her breakthrough, The Innocents<\/a> from the early 2000s, depicted exonerees at the site of their alleged crimes, exploring photography\u2019s role in wrongful convictions. Simon has spent five days cataloguing seized contraband<\/a> at John F Kennedy international airport (\u201cIt was an exercise in sleeplessness\u201d); imported more than 4,000 specimens to recreate floral centerpieces<\/a> from the signings of international treaties; and traced and documented the bloodlines<\/a>, including those of the first female airplane hijacker, the body double of Saddam Hussein\u2019s son, and a lab rabbit. She spent years writing letters and making phone calls to gain access to sites and objects typically unseen by American eyes, from a federal biothreat research facility<\/a> to a braille edition of Playboy.<\/p>\n What kind of person would have the idea, let alone the patience, to go to such lengths?<\/p>\n Taryn Simon Photograph: Eli Baden-Lasar<\/p>\n Simon, 51, has requested that our interview not be recorded. When asked, the New York City-based artist explains that she prefers to talk \u201cnormally\u201d and gestures at an invisible recorder between us, an unsavory intruder. She was eager, if not anxious, to introduce her latest work and narrated long chunks of text while sipping an iced tea. She was quick to giggle or performatively groan over her tendency to make things harder on herself. (\u201cI wish,\u201d she says, at the idea of slapping a print on the wall with Scotch tape \u00e0 la Wolfgang Tillmans<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Simon has worn a uniform style of dress since her 20s, favoring a knee-length suspender skirt for functionality. Amish by way of Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, an apron pocket is perfect for holding film, cameras and what have yous during a shoot. Pants are not a part of her wardrobe, unless, \u201cI have to go someplace with ticks,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I want to take a picture in the woods somewhere, I\u2019m gonna put on some pants.\u201d She designed these garments herself and once made them, too, but has since employed a seamstress. She\u2019s wearing a lacy camisole instead of her typical billowy blouse, but her long, dark hair, now streaked with silver, is parted to the side per usual. She reveals a recent alteration to today\u2019s black outfit, multicolor godets inspired by a stewardess uniform: \u201cI just thought: \u2018That\u2019s so good I need to have it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n During the decade spent making Father Country, Simon experimented with interactive installations, among them a performance piece involving professional mourners<\/a>, an in-gallery cold plunge<\/a> and a voting machine<\/a>. Concurrently, she was going down rabbit holes from the agent\u2019s stories. \u201cI would find this marginal thing on the periphery, and follow it,\u201d Simon says. \u201cI spend a lot of time trying to get to that special spot, and really picking it apart.\u201d<\/p>\n Taryn Simon, Earth two, 2026 Photograph: Taryn Simon<\/p>\n \u201cThe project is built almost like a novel,\u201d Simon explains, \u201ceach chapter is color-coded and begins with a first-person narrative text in the voice of the agent, written by me, based on text messages and visits.\u201d Some connective tissue between image and text is linear: the agent and his colleagues were tasked with finding the bullet that killed deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1993. Instead, Simon says:\u201cThey ended up with tons of civil war objects,\u201d which she catalogues like an encyclopedia of evidence.<\/p>\n Other translations are more sinuous, as if Simon is entering a story through a side door. For instance, the agent was once tasked with babysitting two kids at a hotel and took them to the pool. Turns out, their mother was part of a sting operation that led to the arrest of a DC mayor. Thirtysomething years later, Simon tracked down the woman, Rasheeda Moore, and photographed a lookbook<\/a> for her sister\u2019s fashion brand at the hotel pool.<\/p>\n