Culture

American photographer Taryn Simon aims to reveal the guarded secrets that lie beneath the surface of American identity and the daily functioning of American life.
This exhibition showcases a selection of photographs from Simon’s four-year project in which she plays detective, gaining access to sites normally off-limits to the public eye. The exhibition exposes information through image and text, confronting and undermining that which is known and accessible to the private American citizen.
 
An American Index covers a diversity of subjects, from science to entertainment and religion. Simon’s large-scale photographs are direct and unsentimental, while her sharp seductive colours and unsettling use of light draw you in. Simon’s images interact with their accompanying texts, revealing each image to be more than it seems and inviting closer inspection. Kenny the White Tiger appears poised and powerful, though in reality he is mentally and physically impaired. The text reveals that all living White Tigers in the United States are victims of selective inbreeding, and that Kenny is the only White Tiger of ‘quality’ in his litter.
 
Simon’s matter-of-fact delivery of information contrasts with the mysterious beauty of her images, underscoring the complex relationship between image and text. The realisation that an abstract, geometric light show is actually barrels of glowing nuclear waste forces the viewer to look again and see an image loaded with moral complexities. Some photographs begin with a thinly veiled morbid truth, such as the image of a twiggy woodland bush obscuring the body of a young boy. The text reveals the body to be one of the many cadavers donated to the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility, also known as ‘The Body Farm,’ where recreated crime scenes are studied to improve crime investigation. This coupling of image and text complicates the viewing experience. Conflict is created between visual delight in Simon’s provocative style and the disturbance created by the morbid or immoral facts.
 
This project shows not only how much is hidden under the surface of American life, but also how easily these secrets can be exposed. Bringing such revelations into the gallery space, Simon uses her camera to unmask several stark truths while also exposing the boundaries of information within the public sphere.