Tag Archives: Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon says

24 Feb

In the interview for the ’07 Talent issue of Foam in which American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar was featured, Taryn Simon says:

Regarding language, there are two schools in photography: there are many who will look at my work and say that its reliance on text is a crutch, that a great photograph exists and survives outside of any connection to its caption/context. I don’t disagree, rather I’m not interested or compelled to make that kind of work. It feels disposable. For me the work is more than a photograph and more than aesthetics. It’s not just about taking a perfectly seductive image. Many aren’t. For me it’s the entire package. I am very committed to what is alive aesthetically in a photograph, I work tirelessly at it – but it is always inextricably and perpetually linked to its context. I can’t separate the two. I don’t think I’ll ever want to. Its relevance or success will always be linked to what it is.

Taryn Simon

4 Aug


Taryn Simon, Contraband

Contraband includes photographs taken 24 hours a day of over 1000 items detained or seized from passengers and express mail entering the U.S. from abroad. Over five days, in both the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Federal Inspection Site and the U.S. Postal Service International Mail Facility, Simon documented items including counterfeit American Express travelers checks, overproof Jamaican rum, heroin, a dead hawk, an illegal Mexican passport, deer penis, purses made from endangered species, Cuban cigars, counterfeit Disney DVDs, khat, gold dust, GHB concealed as house cleaner, cow manure tooth powder, counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags, prohibited sausage, undeclared jewelry, steroids and an ostrich egg. – Steidl

Reminds me of this photo from American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

All items in the photograph were seized from the baggage of passengers arriving in the U.S. at JFK Terminal 4 from abroad over a 48-hour period. All seized items are identified, dissected, and then either ground up or incinerated. JFK processes more international passengers than any other airport in the United States.

(via A Photo Student)