Taryn Simon: photography exhibition opening at London’s Tate Modern

Summary of story from The Guardian, May 22, 2011

As interviewer Sean O’Hagan points out, a dedicated exhibition at Tate Modern is ‘a rare accolade for a photographer who is just 36 years old’.

That accolade goes to American art photographer Taryn Simon, who spoke to The Guardian in the run up to the opening of her exhibition in London later this week.

Entitled A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, the exhibition explores genealogy, focusing on 18 family stories. Each is in some way strange, such as the tale of the Indian man of the title – declared dead but still alive.

Simon describes this as her ‘most difficult and demanding project so far’.

It has been praised by Tate curator Simon Baker for its fusion of ‘the tenacity we associate with photojournalism and the practices and presentation of art photography.’ It is, he says, ‘like  entering an incredible book’.  

A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters runs at Tate Modern from May 25 to September 6.