18 Quotes by Taryn Simon

I'm interested in the murky areas where there are no clear answers - or sometimes multiple answers. It's here that I try to imagine patterns or codes to make sense of the unknowns that keep us up at night. I'm also interested in the invisible space between people in communication; the space guided by translation and misinterpretation.

I do seem to try to make things harder and harder for myself. In some perverse way, obstacles interest me and I'm drawn to projects that end up being incredibly laborious.

In my work, I construct texts and images. Between those two points the blur occurs. Each is altered by the other again and again, back and forth.

The majority of my work is about preparation.

My work is drawn to the political but avoids an agenda. There is no inherent critique or support.

Archives exist because there's something that can't necessarily be articulated. Something is said in the gaps between all the information.

Photography threatens fantasy.

There is no truth in photography. One can't reproduce an absolute truth. That said, I don't see [my photographs] as being any less truthful than any other photographs.

You come to the photograph as an aesthetic object with no context... Then you step in and read the text and then out again to revisit the image in a completely different way. I'm interested in that space between text and image. The piece becomes the negative space between the two.