Taryn Simon: An Occupation of Loss

by Taryn Simon, Aliza Watters (Contributor)

In her monograph, An Occupation of Loss , artist Taryn Simon creates a detailed record of her years researching professional mourning, culminating in a seminal performance at the Park Avenue Armory, co-produced by Artangel, in 2016. During the installation, professional mourners simultaneously broadcast their lamentations within a monumental sculptural setting, enacting rituals of grief. The installation combined performance, sound, and architecture to consider the anatomy of grief and the intricate systems we use to manage fate and uncertainty. The book leads the reader through the complicated visa application process for the mourners invited to enter the United States, revealing the underlying structures governing global exchange, the movement of bodies, and the hierarchies of art and culture. An Occupation of Loss , presented by Artangel, will premiere in London in 2018. Edited by Aliza Watters.

219 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2018

About the author

Taryn Simon’s practice features rigorous research and an extensive engagement with archives, which help the artist explore systems of power. Her subjects have included bloodlines, the structure of the criminal justice system, and flower arrangements from photographs of political signings. Simon explores these interests in taxonomic photographs, text works, sculptures, films, and performances that critique long-standing institutions and the ways art has supported them.

The Innocents (2002), for example, documents wrongful conviction cases in the United States and considers how photography and mistaken identification can undermine criminal justice efforts. For An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007), Simon photographed traditionally out-of-sight objects and spaces—from a braille edition of Playboy to the CIA’s art collection—that she believed to be foundational to American mythologies.

Simon’s work belongs in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate.

Reviews

[mwr · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, there are two editions of this work. One is shorter, with a double album of the performance, the text of the lamentations, and some photographic documentation. That is the one I'm reviewing. It's tricky, because it is powerful, moving. At the same time, unless I'm reading along, I haven't the foggiest idea what they're saying -- and even reading along, without any context, I have no clue what things mean for the most part. So, if I'm guessing at what the artist is trying to accomplish with this work, given the replication of visa applications, I think it's fully realized and effective.

Also, I was able to read this sentence, which someone wrote and had printed: "Results are unpredictable; the void opened up by loss can be filled by religion, nihilism, militancy, benevolence -- or anything."