Taryn Simon: The Game
Almine Rech Paris, Matignon is pleased to present 'Taryn Simon: The Game,' the artist's seventh solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from June 14 to July 26, 2025.
What lies behind appearances? Who determines the way we see the world? For nearly twenty-five years, Taryn Simon has been investigating the backstage of power, uncovering the invisible structures that shape our perception. Through a rigorous approach and a meticulously constructed aesthetic, the American artist (born in 1975) examines institutions, censorship, and systems that influence our knowledge鈥攁nd ultimately, our understanding. Simon鈥檚 work resists cursory viewing. It reveals, in layers, the historical and cultural forces relegated to the shadows, while exposing invisible circuits of information: how it鈥檚 collected, controlled, and manipulated.
The theatricality of the political stage, as well as its gamification, lie at the heart of her recent works. Her new photographic series focuses on the figures, places, and objects that captured attention during the 2024 American electoral cycle. Simon has collected traces and relics鈥攁 Fox News microphone, stacks of practice ballots, Capitol Police riot gear, McDonald鈥檚 french fries鈥攚hich she isolates and elevates, emblem-like, as if they were artifacts of an ancient civilization.
Their expressive restraint and apparent simplicity feigns neutrality but reveals a deeper disquiet: Simon dissects the staging of power without interrupting its spectacle. For what the artist invites us to see are the elements of a vast game鈥攖he workings of a democratic system turned performative, where power is measured in scores and consumed as symbols. Conceived as devices as much as images, these works set in motion a discreet dynamic, in which both the subjects and the spectators become participants, silent players, bound in a visual grammar with implicit rules. One of her photographs captures a cluster of red, white, and blue balloons, all gleaming, suspended in anticipation of the ceremonial climax of an electoral event. Just a detail鈥攜et everything is there: the patriotic colors of unity, the aesthetics of victory, the superficiality of a ritual that seeks to ordain.
This same sense of play is transposed into the gallery space. The green carpet stretched across the floor evokes, perhaps, the surface of a billiard table. In this visually codified universe, where color seems to dynamically activate perception, the exhibition takes on the scale of a life-size game. [鈥 鈥� Maud de la Forterie, art historian and researcher
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Almine Rech Paris, Matignon is pleased to present 'Taryn Simon: The Game,' the artist's seventh solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from June 14 to July 26, 2025.
What lies behind appearances? Who determines the way we see the world? For nearly twenty-five years, Taryn Simon has been investigating the backstage of power, uncovering the invisible structures that shape our perception. Through a rigorous approach and a meticulously constructed aesthetic, the American artist (born in 1975) examines institutions, censorship, and systems that influence our knowledge鈥攁nd ultimately, our understanding. Simon鈥檚 work resists cursory viewing. It reveals, in layers, the historical and cultural forces relegated to the shadows, while exposing invisible circuits of information: how it鈥檚 collected, controlled, and manipulated.
The theatricality of the political stage, as well as its gamification, lie at the heart of her recent works. Her new photographic series focuses on the figures, places, and objects that captured attention during the 2024 American electoral cycle. Simon has collected traces and relics鈥攁 Fox News microphone, stacks of practice ballots, Capitol Police riot gear, McDonald鈥檚 french fries鈥攚hich she isolates and elevates, emblem-like, as if they were artifacts of an ancient civilization.
Their expressive restraint and apparent simplicity feigns neutrality but reveals a deeper disquiet: Simon dissects the staging of power without interrupting its spectacle. For what the artist invites us to see are the elements of a vast game鈥攖he workings of a democratic system turned performative, where power is measured in scores and consumed as symbols. Conceived as devices as much as images, these works set in motion a discreet dynamic, in which both the subjects and the spectators become participants, silent players, bound in a visual grammar with implicit rules. One of her photographs captures a cluster of red, white, and blue balloons, all gleaming, suspended in anticipation of the ceremonial climax of an electoral event. Just a detail鈥攜et everything is there: the patriotic colors of unity, the aesthetics of victory, the superficiality of a ritual that seeks to ordain.
This same sense of play is transposed into the gallery space. The green carpet stretched across the floor evokes, perhaps, the surface of a billiard table. In this visually codified universe, where color seems to dynamically activate perception, the exhibition takes on the scale of a life-size game. [鈥 鈥� Maud de la Forterie, art historian and researcher
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