ART CITIES:Rome-Taryn Simon
Taryn Simon has constructed an ambitious body of work that is the result of an invisible and rigorous process of research and investigation. Her works combine photography, text, and graphic design, in conceptual projects addressing the production and circulation of knowledge, and the politics of representation. Simon interrogates the power and structure of secrecy and the precarious nature of survival.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Gallery Archive
Taryn’s Simon first exhibition in Italy entitled “Paperwork and the Will of Capital” comprises 36 large-scale photographs of floral bouquets, alongside 12 sculptures of concrete plinths with flower pressings. For the last 3 years, Taryn Simon has immersed herself in the literature surrounding flowers, beginning with the work of George Sinclair, a British imperial gardener of the 19th century. The flower as a symbolic entity intrigued her, but it was, as the political element that dominated her fixation. The more she looked, the more she saw how with every major event, where world leaders and corporations met in a room together to have their picture taken, there was a flower arrangement designed to underscore the importance of the parties present. Taryn Simon has recreated the floral centrepieces arranged on the tables where 36 international agreements were signed, between 1968 and 2014. For the recreations, the artist worked with a botanist to identify all the flowers from archival records. She imported more than 4000 floral and plant specimens from the Aalsmeer Flower Auction to her studio, where she remade, as far as possible, the floral arrangements from each signing, then photographed them against striking duochromatic fields that reproduce the contrasting foreground and background color schemes visible in the historical records. After each arrangement was assembled and photographed, the specimens were dried, pressed, and sewn to archival herbarium paper. A set of these botanical collages were then placed in each of the concrete presses, juxtaposed with archival inkjet prints of their photographic likenesses and textual references to create a series of 12 sculptures. Each sculpture displays a book of 64 herbarium pages, each spread bearing pressed flower specimens featured in Simon’s photographs alongside information about the historical event that inspired them. The plinths and photographs, shown here for the first time together, work in tandem to escalate the intensity of Simon’s focus.
Info: Gagosian Gallery, Via Francesco Crispi 16, Rome, Duration: 14/4-24//16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:30-19:00, www.gagosian.com
