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Taryn Simon

Paperwork and the Will of Capital

February 18–March 26, 2016
555 West 24th Street, New York

Installation view Artworks © Taryn Simon, photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artworks © Taryn Simon, photo by Rob McKeever

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Installation Video

Works Exhibited

Taryn Simon, Memorandum of Understanding between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Government of Australia Relating to the Settlement of Refugees in Cambodia, Ministry of Interior, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, September 26, 2014, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 Archival inkjet print and text on archival herbarium paper in wood frame, 85 × 73 ¼ × 2 ¾ inches (215.9 × 186.1 × 7 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Memorandum of Understanding between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Government of Australia Relating to the Settlement of Refugees in Cambodia, Ministry of Interior, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, September 26, 2014, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015

Archival inkjet print and text on archival herbarium paper in wood frame, 85 × 73 ¼ × 2 ¾ inches (215.9 × 186.1 × 7 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP
© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Bratislava Declaration, Bratislava, Slovakia, August 3, 1968, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 Archival inkjet print and text on archival herbarium paper in wood frame, 85 × 73 ¼ × 2 ¾ inches (215.9 × 186.1 × 7 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Bratislava Declaration, Bratislava, Slovakia, August 3, 1968, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015

Archival inkjet print and text on archival herbarium paper in wood frame, 85 × 73 ¼ × 2 ¾ inches (215.9 × 186.1 × 7 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP
© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Bratislava Declaration, Bratislava, Slovakia, August 3, 1968; Dianthus caryophyllus, Carnation, Colombia, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 Pigmented concrete press, dried plant specimens, archival inkjet prints, text on archival herbarium paper, and steel brace, 43 × 28 ½ × 20 ½ inches (109.2 × 72.4 x 52.1 cm)© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Bratislava Declaration, Bratislava, Slovakia, August 3, 1968; Dianthus caryophyllus, Carnation, Colombia, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015

Pigmented concrete press, dried plant specimens, archival inkjet prints, text on archival herbarium paper, and steel brace, 43 × 28 ½ × 20 ½ inches (109.2 × 72.4 x 52.1 cm)
© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Agreement Establishing the International Islamic Trade, Finance Corporation, Al-Bayan Palace, Kuwait City, Kuwait, May 30, 2006, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 Archival inkjet print and text on archival herbarium paper in wood frame, 85 × 73 ¼ × 2 ¾ inches (215.9 × 186.1 × 7 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Agreement Establishing the International Islamic Trade, Finance Corporation, Al-Bayan Palace, Kuwait City, Kuwait, May 30, 2006, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015

Archival inkjet print and text on archival herbarium paper in wood frame, 85 × 73 ¼ × 2 ¾ inches (215.9 × 186.1 × 7 cm), edition of 3 + 2 AP
© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Agreement Establishing the International Islamic Trade, Finance Corporation, Al-Bayan Palace, Kuwait City, Kuwait, May 30, 2006; Rosa × hybrida, Hybrid Tea Rose, Ecuador, Gerbera × hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands, Hydrangea macrophylla, Big Leaf Hydrangea, Netherlands, Dendrobium hybrid, Dendrobium, Thailand, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015 Pigmented concrete press, dried plant specimens, archival inkjet prints, text on archival herbarium paper, and steel brace, 43 × 28 ½ × 20 ½ inches (109.2 × 72.4 x 52.1 cm)© Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Agreement Establishing the International Islamic Trade, Finance Corporation, Al-Bayan Palace, Kuwait City, Kuwait, May 30, 2006; Rosa × hybrida, Hybrid Tea Rose, Ecuador, Gerbera × hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands, Hydrangea macrophylla, Big Leaf Hydrangea, Netherlands, Dendrobium hybrid, Dendrobium, Thailand, from the series Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015

Pigmented concrete press, dried plant specimens, archival inkjet prints, text on archival herbarium paper, and steel brace, 43 × 28 ½ × 20 ½ inches (109.2 × 72.4 x 52.1 cm)
© Taryn Simon

About

These flowers sat between powerful men as they signed agreements designed to influence the fate of the world.
—Taryn Simon

Gagosian is pleased to present Taryn Simon’s first exhibition at the New York gallery. The sculptures—Simon’s first foray into the medium—previewed at the 56th Biennale di Venezia in 2015; this exhibition brings them together with large-scale, annotated photographs as a complete body of work for the first time.

The new series comprises twelve unique sculptures and thirty-six editioned photographs. The photographs—large, colorful, and spectacular, with a nod to Pop art, and custom-framed in mahogany to emulate the style of boardroom furniture—speak to the bombast of national and corporate symbolism; the sculptures—stylized concrete flower-presses containing delicate preserved floral specimens and their documentation—operate in a discrete and classified zone.

A storyteller whose grist is the instability of fact, Simon has produced such impactful, research-driven bodies of work as The Innocents (2002); An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007); Contraband (2010); and A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII (2008–11); as well as the more whimsical The Picture Collection (2013) and Birds of the West Indies (2013–14). Simon takes empirical photography into the field of post-conceptual practice, with exacting attention to aesthetic and formal concerns.

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News

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

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.

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

Press

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