Part II: Taryn Simon @ the MAM

At the beginning of Taryn Simon\'s Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition, a young boy approximately four-years old stands with his parents. He eyes glued to, mesmerized by the video of a nuclear explosion the artist features on a screen placed before her three separate art projects on display. He\'s fascinated with the footage, the billowing cloud and smoke, an orange circle in the center. Yet, the boy has no understanding what he is actually watching or what the cloud means.

This situation explains that space between the visual image and then the text that accompanies each image in Simon\'s exhibitions. A place and space where the fantasy of the image will be destroyed by reading the text when the fallacy of that first interpretation emerges. Only this four year old boy, who reaches to touch the orange ball on the video screen and is told “no touching,” will also be probably be told there\'s no understanding this explosion at his tender age.

Taryn Simon, up and coming fine art photographer, spoke at the Milwaukee Art Museum in November. Her acclaimed exhibition “Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts” places for the first time three of the artist\'s extensive projects in one place. A mini retrospective offering the the public an opportunity to experience her past art projects that continues through January 1. Then the exhibition travels to Europe in Moscow and Helsinki while Taryn continues to work on other photography through her demanding and intensive process that incorporates art, data collection, and often cultural and scientific study.  

When Simon lectured at the Milwaukee museum, she articulated carefully for those in the audience her career inspiration and artistic process to her extensively planned photography projects that may require up to four years to complete. At the lecture, the questions and answered proved just as fascinating as Simon herself.

In your exhibitions, especially “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” the text next to the pictures is so small. Could you explain why?

Text is part of my work, integral to my work. I choose a specific size and font so the observer needs to go up to the wall [placed beside the photograph] in private scrutiny. In “An American Index” particularly, once can\'t experience the image and text at the same time. One sees the photograph first, and experiences that. Then they read the text and the fantasy they imagined with the image is destroyed. When you read the text the translation, memory, corruption all happens between that space, between photograph, or image and the text. [The small size makes the observer go to text, and allows this to happen.]

Could you explain that space between the image and text?

It\'s the space [time] when one imagines or is fascinated by the picture and then discovers the fallacy of those thoughts. All my text is very specific and written and rewritten numerous times before being placed. I\'m controlling how the text and images are used That point of engagement where thing are translated, distorted, a space without borders. Photographs can threaten fantasy, shatter illusion, of who and what is behind the curtain.

Does anyone help you with the texts and images?

I work with my sister, and one assistant, and there\'s a pre-stage when we data collect, categorize, fact check and write extensively while we decide on shots. Then after the shots are taken, we go through it all again, with writing and rewriting relentlessly so the exact text and size remains in the exhibition. For “American Index,” this required persistence, sometimes two years to get into a specific place or a collection. However, after a while, there were those who would vouch for my work, how I use text and image in what would be collaborative. And [made it] very clear about what I\'m doing in my work, which concerned the divide between private and public spaces, emotional and metaphysical distance, so that there is [the small text and information which creates] that awkward, disoriented, disconnect that makes one uncomfortable and shows the invalidity to our feelings [about an image]. The Milwaukee Art Museum was very easy to work with and understood why the text needed to be exactly as you see it in the exhibition.

Some of the images in the exhibition are beautiful. Are you trying to capture beauty?

I first started more aesthetically, where the images were about light. Now, I hope to be more like a machine, a recorder, the seriality, the psychology, data and information has more importance. Beauty is not the focus. In my early days, this seduction [of beauty] was important, but my ideas of seduction and beauty have changed. My own evolution is shown here [through these three exhibitions]. But it\'s an image that still speaks.

What is one of your favorite images from the exhibition?

One of them is at the nuclear waste facility. [Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, Cherenkov Radiation, Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy, Southeastern  Washington State]. It was a very long exposure and took me nearly six hours to complete. I had to wear protective gear, a thin suit to protect myself. Fixated on getting the image, the light, one forgets about how dangerous it could or can be. You spend six hours in the room, with the blue glow in the water [Partial Text: The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds.]. And then you wonder when your health is not 100 percent, that it might be dangerous to get this shot. What\'s beautiful in an art context [an image], could lead to someone\'s death in another. One wonders if the image can replace the memory of the image, if there ever was one.

The Milwaukee Art Museum presents “Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts” through January 1. Allow plenty of time to view the exhibition so all the text can be read, and all three exhibitions experienced. Be sure to read at the museum or at home the free catalogue discussing Simon\'s work more completely that is available at the exhibition\'s entrance.