The Milwaukee Art Museum opened a prestigious photography exhibition in their contemporary art gallery on September 22: “TARYN SIMON Photographs and Texts.” As the ambitious Curator of Photographs for the MAM, Lisa Hostetler began planning the exhibition in 2007 after viewing only one series from Simon\'s thought provoking perspective. Talks began with the international artist for this expanded edition to find its way to Milwaukee four years later.
Simon\'s MAM exhibit represents the first time the photographer has presented a survey, which includes three former exhibitions at one venue. Currently her new work under the title “A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters” will be seen at London\'s Tate Modern, New York\'s Museum of Modern Art and Berlin\'s Neue Nationalgalerie. After the MAM exhibition closes in January 2012, this premiere exhibition curated by Hostetler travels to Helsinki and Moscow.
Simon\'s photographs play with how images might fool memory and distort what a person thinks they are seeing and then remembers from the photo. The two may be surprisingly different. In today\'s world with increased technical capabilities, especially photoshopping, the print might portray fiction or truth. Which actually is it? What does the image actually represent visually and then how does that coincide with the reality of its verbal description?
From over airbrushing cover girls on magazines to documenting war zones through a chosen perspective, visual images continually impart a larger role in how one interprets the world, close to home and on the other side of the globe. Cell phones alter these far reaching opportunities by providing ubiquitous portraits and photos that may cross thousands of miles in mere seconds. And who has not seen a regrettable or unfortunate photo on a Facebook page? A certain photograph may appear over the internet when one could be totally unaware it even exists.
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Simon addresses these concepts with contemplative insight grounded in profound reality. Her text placed beside each photo in two of the exhibitions juxtaposes an aesthetically fascinating or pleasing image and what the viewer may perceive they are seeing against what the photo actually represents when reading the informative text.
When studying each photograph, Simon connects the viewer to complex social and political issues that creates a stunning awareness and then intelligent awakening. Her series of three exhibitions under the MAM title include: “The Innocents (2002), ” An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2010) and “Contraband (2010). As part of new programming for this exhibition, the MAM will be offering three Coffee, Art, and Conversation mornings to informally discuss these ideas with the artist (through Skype), the curator, and a featured guest expert on the subject. In Part II of Art Talk coming this week, a brief description of how each series unveils these themes will revisit what does one really see in a photograph?
The Milwaukee Art Museum presents TARYN SMITH Photographs and Texts through January 1 and hosts Gallery Talks on September 27, October 25, and November 29 at 1:30 p.m. Taryn Smith will arrive on November 19 for an artist\'s talk at 1:30 p.m. Coffee,
Art and Conversations will be hosted Saturdays, October 1, November 5 and December 3, 10:30 a.m. Visit www.mam.org for more information.
