{"data":{"id":"9743","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":9743,"topgoose_id":645,"tms_id":9743,"display_name":"Taryn Simon","sort_name":"Simon Taryn","display_date":"1975–","begin_date":"1975","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eTaryn Simon investigates photography\nfrom within, employing the medium\nto probe its various uses and abuses.\nHer projects of the past decade, which\nare extensive in means and scope,\nhave integrated photographs, text, and\nelements of graphic design in inventorying,\namong other subjects, contraband items\nseized by airport authorities, bloodlines\nthat connect hundreds of people around\nthe world, and birds in James Bond\nfilms. With a taxonomic approach, Simon\nplumbs the internal contradictions\nof the photographic medium, exploring it\nas a mode of both corroboration and\nconcealment, truthtelling and obfuscation,\ncohesiveness and fragmentation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe man named Larry Mayes\nwho is featured in Simon’s 2002 work was\nidentified by a rape victim as one of\nher attackers on the basis of a photograph;\nhe was consequently imprisoned for nearly\ntwenty years, even though no biological\nevidence had tied him to the crime. The work\nis one of fifty that comprise Simon’s\nearly project \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/23975\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Innocents\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, for which the\nartist photographed men who had been\nconvicted of violent crimes, and who\nwere imprisoned and then later exonerated\nthrough DNA evidence. Simon learned\nthat mistaken identification, often made\nthrough photographic images of suspects,\nwas a frequent cause of wrongful conviction.\u003cem\u003e\nThe Innocents,\u003c/em\u003e as she has explained,\n“stresses the cost of ignoring the limitations\nof photography and minimizing the\ncontext in which photographic images are\npresented.” Each subject was photographed\nat a site significant to his experience;\nLarry Mayes, his gaze at once defiant and\nresigned, is posing here in the decrepit\nIndiana hotel room where he was arrested\nfor a crime he did not commit.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500393640","wikidata_id":"Q534385","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:46:09.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-27T07:01:06.142-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/9743/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/9743/exhibitions"}}}}