Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
Text by Ronald Dworkin, Tina Kukielski, Salman Rushdie, Elisabeth Sussman.
First published in 2008, and now commanding high prices second-hand, Taryn Simon’s An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar reveals objects, sites and spaces that are integral to America’s foundation, mythology or daily functioning, but which remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. To make the more than 60 large-format photographs often required protracted negotiations before Simon was granted access to the sites. When circumstances permitted, she photographed with a large-format camera and careful lighting, emphatically not following the tradition of the journalistic snapshot. The photographs include radioactive containers in a storage facility for nuclear waste; the recreational facility of a high-security prison; the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan with its Wizards, Night Hawks and Kleagles; a Scientology seminar room; MOUT, a facade city in Kentucky built as a training ground for urban warfare; the sealed-off halls of the CIA headquarters; a high-security research institute studying animal epidemics; and an operating room in which a Palestinian woman had her hymen (and thus her virginity) restored. Each image is accompanied by a brief text written by the artist, that precisely explains what is seen and why it is hidden or off-limits. Although An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar forces us to confront the darker side of democratic society, it also conveys the fascination that attends the exploration of forbidden territories.
Taryn Simon was born in New York in 1975. She has produced several books of photography and writing, including Contraband, The Innocents and A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters. Other subjects documented by Simon include feuding families in Brazil, victims of genocide in Bosnia and the body double of Saddam Hussein’s son Uday.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Bookforum
Jessica Loudis
The cover of Taryn Simon's newly reprinted 2008 monograph, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, is unlikely to catch any casual viewer's eye. Bound in nondescript gray cloth, with its title inscribed in gold lettering over a black background, the book looks like a volume of an encyclopedia or a legal periodical. But inside you'll find something far less anodyne: a mesmerizing, carefully composed series of photographs whose subjects range from decomposing corpses and quarantined parrots to NASA guesthouses and control rooms of nuclear submarines.
FORMAT: Hbk, 10 x 13.5 in. / 152 pgs / 57 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $85.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $112.5 ISBN: 9783775735063 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 7/31/2013 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Ronald Dworkin, Tina Kukielski, Salman Rushdie, Elisabeth Sussman.
First published in 2008, and now commanding high prices second-hand, Taryn Simon’s An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar reveals objects, sites and spaces that are integral to America’s foundation, mythology or daily functioning, but which remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. To make the more than 60 large-format photographs often required protracted negotiations before Simon was granted access to the sites. When circumstances permitted, she photographed with a large-format camera and careful lighting, emphatically not following the tradition of the journalistic snapshot. The photographs include radioactive containers in a storage facility for nuclear waste; the recreational facility of a high-security prison; the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan with its Wizards, Night Hawks and Kleagles; a Scientology seminar room; MOUT, a facade city in Kentucky built as a training ground for urban warfare; the sealed-off halls of the CIA headquarters; a high-security research institute studying animal epidemics; and an operating room in which a Palestinian woman had her hymen (and thus her virginity) restored. Each image is accompanied by a brief text written by the artist, that precisely explains what is seen and why it is hidden or off-limits. Although An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar forces us to confront the darker side of democratic society, it also conveys the fascination that attends the exploration of forbidden territories.
Taryn Simon was born in New York in 1975. She has produced several books of photography and writing, including Contraband, The Innocents and A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters. Other subjects documented by Simon include feuding families in Brazil, victims of genocide in Bosnia and the body double of Saddam Hussein’s son Uday.
