Taryn Simon @ The MAM

PART I: Who inspired Taryn Simon's Passion for Photography?

Nov. 27, 2011

3:36 a.m.

Last weekend Taryn Simon flew to the Midwest for a lecture at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) to discuss her exhibition “Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts, " a mini retrospective of her work over the last several years. The exhibition explores three of her recent projects titled The Innocents, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfortunate, and Contraband, which includes her early and formative work. After speaking for about an hour to a full auditorium at the MAM, Simon offered a question and answer time on this Saturday afternoon where she articulated with great confidence about her artistic passion and process.

Simon answered a question regarding the inspiration in her life, to which she immediately mentioned her father and grandfather, who helped form her singular dedication to art, data collection and scientific information examined through the art of photography. She relates that her father traveled the world as an employee for the State Department, bringing home hundreds of the recently defunct, brightly colored Kodachrome pictures from around the world. While Simon was fascinated with their beauty of exotic places, her father\'s photos were images layered with political and social commentary.

Her father was the one who provided Simon with a camera from her childhood so she could examine the world through the camera\'s eye. As Simon explained, “I\'ve been doing this instinctively from a young age…Viewing the distant world journeys…the prolific Kodachrome photographs that were conceptual and political…Taught about thinking outside the normal path of knowledge.”

Simon then reveals that her grandfather also contributed to her artistic identity because he was a photographer that focused on nature and the organic world. He photographed dirt, flowers, insects, rocks and stars. After compiling the pictures, her grandfather would then record and document them with scientific data and information. This offered Simon another viewpoint from which she could observe the world through her camera\'s lens.

Simon then introduced her father, who traveled with her on that November afternoon to hear her speak in Milwaukee. She mentioned that her father and grandfather used great physical effort and organization to complete their photographic projects, and this element also became integrated into her work. Most of her projects require considerable research before Simon even begins to plan the prints or shots, which then requires carrying equipment when she travels across the globe for her chosen images. Afterwards, great amounts of time completed with her sister\'s assistance are necessary to categorize and determine their eventual exhibition. Then during an exhibition, Simon only allows certain prints to be released to media sources to uphold these strict standards she sets for herself and her photography, all carefully made decisions to the exhibit\'s content, in photographs and texts, that remain in the public\'s eye.

In a post interview with Simon when she walked through her current exhibit in the MAM\'s contemporary gallery, Simon explained with great admiration and devotion that her father remains her best friend. Someone she talks through all her work with on a conceptual level. Then Simon pointed out that while her grandfather has passed on, his art lives on in her life. She looks through the slides he left behind numerous times for continual inspiration, for his legacy to resurface in her own work. These two relatives helped shape Simon the artist who married her father\'s global perspective with her grandfather\'s intimate curiosity for scientific data. The dual inspiration defines Simon\'s very personal and unique aesthetic vision on display in "Photographs and Texts."

In Part II of Taryn Simon @ the MAM for next week\'s art talk, Simon discusses her process, work and favorite pieces in the current exhibition. The MAM presents “Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts” through January 1, 2012 or visit www.mam.org.