Taryn Simon on her most ambitious exhibition yet: ‘It’s built almost like a novel’

The multidisciplinary artist delves into pockets of history, including within her family, for the largest ever debut of new work staged at the Guggenheim 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’s 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’s still a lot of work to be done.

Downstairs, the lobby is being transformed into the Bangkok living room of Jim Thompson, a silk businessman-slash-spy who disappeared in 1967.

Simon’s 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’s famous wood-panelled den back in Long Island. “And then I built it here with fake teak,” she says, voice wilting.

“It’s driving me nuts. I’ve spent so much time trying to make non-teak look like teak. ” Continue reading...