Taryn Simon directs our attention to the unseen forces shaping the worlds we inhabit. Her projects, using photography, sculpture, text, sound and performance, center on storytelling, secrecy, and the hidden contours of power. Simon works with institutions including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the International Commission on Missing Persons, and the Fine Arts Commission of the CIA.

Her multi-year projects include The Innocents, documenting the stories of individuals who served time in American prisons for violent crimes they did not commit; An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, examining the divide between public and expert access through hidden and unknown objects and sites in the United States; A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I – XVIII, for which Simon traveled the world recording bloodlines and their related stories; the photographs and sculptures of Paperwork and the Will of Capital recreate the bouquets of flowers arrayed at a number of international treaty signings; and An Occupation of Loss in which professional mourners enact rituals of grief, simultaneously broadcasting their lamentations from within a sculptural installation.

Simon’s work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, US; Tate Modern, London, UK; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, US; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, US; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, US, among others. A major exhibition of Simon's new work will open in September 2026 at the Guggenheim in New York. Her work has been exhibited at Cisternerne, Frederiksberg, Denmark (2024); Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, NY, US (2024); Fondazione Prada at the Venice Biennale, Italy (2022), the New York Public Library, NY, US (2021), Aichi Triennale, Japan (2019), Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA, US (2018–2019); Artangel, London, UK (2018); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2016-2017); Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY, US (2016); Albertinum, Dresden, Germany (2016); United Nations, New York, NY, US (2016); Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic (2016); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia (2016); the 56th Venice Biennale, Italy (2015); Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2015); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, US (2012); Tate Modern, London, UK (2011); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2011); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, US (2007); and MoMA PS1, New York, NY, US (2003). Simon’s honors include the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography and a Photo London Master of Photography award.