Exhibition Review- Taryn Simon: 'The Picture collection'

During our day in London The Gagosian in Davies street was one of the galleries we visited as a group towards the end of the day. It was an exhibition of a New York artist, Taryn Simon's most recent body of work titled 'The Picture Collection'.

TARYN SIMON

 Express Highways, 2012

47 x 62 inches framed  (119.4 x 157.5 cm)

This collection was made to go with the online database 'Image Atlas' something she earlier created with computer programmer Aaron Swartz. It is made up of forty-four works found in the New York public library picture archive. The archive contains 1.2 million prints, postcards, posters, and printed images, most of which have been cut from secondary sources, such as books and magazines. Taryn Simon found it important to  put well known images throughout history next to others that are by unknown artists in order to make the viewer question it and to tries to question the way in which contemporary culture works. 

The gallery had a professional layout that you would expect to see with the white walls beaming, matching frames, photographs hung at the correct height and spaced out equally in the space. There is nothing good about this way out although its clear its just missing the excitement and I personally would hate my work to be in a gallery space like this. The white walls really draw the attention away from the work because your normally feeling quite blinded by the walls which is rather overwhelming.  

Although I understand the idea behind her work I just dont see a college of lots of images a final peice for me its just a mood board and a starting point. This type of gallery is not what I enjoy because I just feel too fresh and perfect can take away from the quality of the work so I dont see myself going back there anytime soon. 

Sources:

http://www.tarynsimon.com/

http://www.gagosian.com/