Taryn Simon, Avian Quarantine Facility, The New York Animal Import Center, Newburgh, New York, European Finches seized upon illegal importation into the U.S. and African Gray Parrots in quarantine.All imported birds that are not of U.S. or Canadian origin must undergo a 30 day quarantine in a U.S. Department of Agriculture animal import quarantine facility. The quarantine is mandatory and at the owner's expense. Birds are immediately placed in incubators called isolettes that control the spread of disease and prevent cross-contamination by strategically placed High Efficiency Particulate Air Filters.Before each quarantined bird is cleared for release, it is tested for Avian Influenza and Exotic Newcastle Disease.
Taryn Simon, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Contraband Room John F. Kennedy International Airport, Queens, New York. African cane rats infested with maggots, African yams (dioscorea), Andean potatoes, Bangladeshi cucurbit plants, bush meat, cherimoya fruit, curry leaves (murraya), dried orange peels, fresh eggs, giant African snail, impala skull cap, jackfruit seeds, June plum, kola nuts, mango, okra, passion fruit, pig nose, pig mouths, pork, raw poultry (chicken), South American pig head, South American tree tomatoes, South Asian lime infected with citrus canker, sugar cane (poaceae), uncooked meats, unidentified sub tropical plant in soil. All items in the photograph were seized from the baggage of passengers arriving in the U.S. at JFK Terminal 4 from abroad over a 48-hour period. All seized items are identified, dissected, and then either ground up or incinerated. JFK processes more international passengers than any other airport in the United States.
Taryn Simon, Research Marijuana Crop Grow Room, National Center for Natural Products Research Oxford, Mississippi. The National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) is the only facility in the United States which is federally licensed to cultivate cannabis for scientific research. In addition to cultivating cannabis, NCNPR is responsible for analyzing seized marijuana for potency trends, herbicide residuals (paraquat) and fingerprint identification. NCNPR is licensed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and also researches and develops chemicals derived from plants, marine organisms, and other natural products. While 11 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana, a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision allows for the arrest of any individual caught using it for this purpose. Nearly half of the annual arrests for drug violations involve marijuana possession or
trafficking.
Taryn Simon, White Tiger (Kenny), Selective Inbreeding, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge and Foundation, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. In the United States, all living white tigers are the result of selective inbreeding to artificially create the genetic conditions that lead to white fur, ice-blue eyes and a pink nose. Kenny was born to a breeder in Bentonville, Arkansas on February 3, 1999. As a result of inbreeding, Kenny is mentally retarded and has significant physical limitations. Due to his deep-set nose, he has difficulty breathing and closing his jaw, his teeth are severely malformed and he limps from abnormal bone structure in his forearms. The three other tigers in Kenny’s litter are not considered to be quality white tigers as they are yellow coated, cross-eyed, and knock-kneed.
Taryn Simon, Playboy, Braille Edition, Playboy Enterprises, Inc., New York, New York, The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), a division of the U.S. Library of Congress, provides a free national library program of Braille and recorded materials for blind and physically handicapped persons. Magazines included in the NLS’s programs are selected on the basis of demonstrated reader interest. This includes the publishing and distribution of a Braille edition of Playboy. Approximately 10 million American adults read Playboy every month, with 3 million obtaining it through paid circulation. It has included articles by writers such as Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kurt Vonnegut and conducted interviews with Salvador Dali, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Malcolm X. |
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Museum für Moderne Kunst
Domstrasse 10
49 69 212 30447
Frankfurt
Taryn Simon,
An American Index
of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
September 29, 2007-
January 20, 2008
Taryn Simon first took the limelight with her exhibition of photographs titled The Innocents at New York’s PS 1 Contemporary Art Center. Documenting cases of wrongful conviction in the United States, the work equally investigated photography’s role in that process. Taryn Simon is a Guggenheim Fellow; her photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and form part of international collections.
Taryn Simon presents a new series of photographs, exhibited in its entirety for the first time. In An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, the artist assumes the dual role of shrewd informant and collector of curiosities, compiling an inventory of what is hidden and out-of-view within the borders of the United States. She examines a culture, carefully documenting diverse subjects from the realms of science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security, and religion. Transforming the unknown into a seductive and intelligible form, Simon confronts the divide between those with and without the privilege of access. Her ethereal and foreboding compositions, shot with a large-format view camera as conditions allowed, vary as much as her subject matter: it ranges from radioactive capsules at a nuclear waste storage site and the recreational facility of a high security prison to a black bear in hibernation. Offering visions of the unseen, the photographs of An American Index capture the strange magic at the foundation of a national identity.
Taryn Simon was born in New York in 1975. She is a graduate of Brown University and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her highly acclaimed and influential work, The Innocents, documents cases of wrongful conviction in the United States and investigates photography’s role in that process. Simon’s photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including: High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Haus Der Kunst, Munich; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; and Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Permanent collections include: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her photography and writing have been featured in numerous publications and broadcasts including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, CNN, BBC, Frontline, and NPR. Simon has been a visiting artist at institutions including: Yale University, Bard College, Columbia University, School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. She is represented by Gagosian Gallery. Her current body of work is titled An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar. It will be published by Steidl and exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art, March-June, 2006 and the Museum fur Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt/Main, November 2007-February 2008.
In An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, Taryn Simon documents spaces that are integral to America’s foundation, mythology and daily functioning, but remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. She has photographed rarely seen sites from domains including: science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security and religion. This index examines subjects that, while provocative or controversial, are currently legal. The work responds to a desire to discover unknown territories, to see everything.
Simon makes use of the annotated-photograph’s capacity to engage and inform the public. Transforming that which is off-limits or under-the-radar into a visible and intelligible form, she confronts the divide between the privileged access of the few and the limited access of the public. Photographed with a large format view camera (except when prohibited), Simon’s 70 color plates form a seductive collection that reflects and reveals a national identity.
Salman Rushdie wrote a foreword to accompany An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar. Ronald Dworkin contributed a commentary. Curators Elisabeth Sussman and Tina Kukielski of The Whitney Museum of American Art contributed an introduction.
Simon’s earliest body of work and first book, produced with the support of a photography grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, is titled The Innocents. The Innocents documents the stories of individuals who served time in prison for violent crimes they did not commit. At issue is the question of photography's function as a credible eyewitness and arbiter of justice.
The primary cause of wrongful conviction is mistaken identification. A victim or eyewitness identifies a suspected perpetrator through law enforcement's use of photographs and lineups. This procedure relies on the assumption of precise visual memory. But, through exposure to composite sketches, mugshots, Polaroids, and lineups, eyewitness memory can change. In the history of these cases, photography offered the criminal justice system a tool that transformed innocent citizens into criminals. Photographs assisted officers in obtaining eyewitness identifications and aided prosecutors in securing convictions.
Simon photographed these men at sites that had particular significance to their illegitimate conviction: the scene of misidentification, the scene of arrest, the scene of the crime or the scene of the alibi. All of these locations hold contradictory meanings for the subjects. The scene of arrest marks the starting point of a reality based in fiction. The scene of the crime is at once arbitrary and crucial: this place, to which they have never been, changed their lives forever. In these photographs Simon confronts photography's ability to blur truth and fiction-an ambiguity that can have severe, even lethal consequences.
Taryn Simon is also known for her photographs documenting international regions in turmoil, presented in a manner that is typically reserved for less controversial subjects. Her formal choices — the use of a large format camera, dramatic lighting, and the calculated relationship between the subject and location — challenge her audience to confront contemporary social and political issues. |
