Taryn Simon
Agreement to conduct impact studies of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on neighboring countries, Khartoum, Sudan, August 26, 2014. Gerbera x hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands, Gerbera x hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands, Rosa x hybrida, Hybrid Tea Rose, Ethiopia, Gerbera x hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands, Gerbera x hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands, Gerbera x hybrida, Gerbera, Netherlands
“In Paperwork and the Will of Capital, Simon examines accords, treaties, and decrees drafted to influence systems of governance and economics, from nuclear armament to oil deals and diamond trading. All involve the countries present at the 1944 United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, which addressed the globalization of economics after World War II, leading to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In images of the signings of these documents, powerful men flank floral centerpieces designed to underscore the importance of the parties present. Simon’s photographs of the recreated centerpieces from these signings, together with their stories, underscore how the stagecraft of political and economic power is created, performed, marketed, and maintained.Each of Simon’s recreations of these floral arrangements represents an “impossible bouquet”—a concept that emerged in Dutch still-life painting parallel to the country’s seventeenth-century economic boom, which ushered in the development of modern capitalism. Then, the impossible bouquet was an artificial fantasy of flowers that could never bloom naturally in the same season and geographic location. Now the fantasy is made possible—both in the original signings and in Simon’s photographs—by the global consumer market.”
—Gagosian Gallery
Little Bristling Soul 