Taryn Simon

photographed by CAMILLE BIDAULT WADDINGTON
text by Jeff Rian

All Taryn Simon’s artworks courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

 

Taryn Simon is a committed photographer, ambitiously exploring the most shocking, bizarre, and delirious aspects of late capitalism. Photography is definitely in her blood — her father and grandfather were both avid photographers. She has a refined sense of style, looking like an enigmatic heroine from a romantic film, and with her true New York tenacity, she’s taken pictures in places other photographer haven’t dared to tread.

Taryn combines very high quality large-format photography — one having a style as throttling as that of a David Lynch highlight and as well-lit as a Philip-Lorca diCorcia picture — with writing that has the intensity of a hardcore investigative journalist’s exposé.
She has produced the series The Innocents (2003), which features portraits of people convicted and sentenced for crimes they didn’t commit; An American…