Taryn Simon’s “Father Country I Do Love You” Fills the Guggenheim Rotunda

Taryn Simon’s new work fills the entire spiral rotunda of the Guggenheim. Father Country I Do Love You brings together photographs, text, video and sculpture in a single, monumental installation — the first solo show by a photography-based artist in the rotunda, and the largest debut of new work the museum has ever staged. We went, and it was one of the most moving exhibitions in New York this season.

Nearly a decade in the making, the project traces the real life of an unnamed federal agent across 42 multipart “chapters.” Stings and entrapments, traitors and child soldiers, impeachment and Hollywood, mass shootings and poison: the agent was a middleman who witnessed events large and small and gathered evidence for someone else to fit into the bigger picture. Simon follows how his actions — and inactions — rippled out into nations and lives he would never know.

Shadowing the story is the life of Simon’s own father, who lived in Thailand while working for the US government and ended his career making and selling arcade games. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she realized she would never hear his full story. That sense of filling gaps in memory with what others tell you runs quietly through the whole show.

Walking up the ramp, chapter by chapter, feels like reading a long novel on foot. Violence and grace, control and boredom, responsibility and fantasy, grief and routine sit side by side — not as contradictions but as parts of the same life. In the year of the United States’ 250th anniversary, it is also a show about democracy, memory and the weight of a single person’s choices.

Some works invite participation: Kleroterion (2024), a sculpture based on an ancient Greek election device, is activated daily. The audio guide on Bloomberg Connects features narration by Jodie Foster and an AI-generated voice clone of the artist’s father — bring headphones. An artist’s book reproducing every image and text is co-published with Hatje Cantz.

Simon has long used photography and text to reveal what goes unseen, from The Innocents to Paperwork and the Will of Capital. This is her most ambitious work yet. On view through March 14, 2027 — give it time.

Also on view: Almine Rech New York in Tribeca (361 Broadway) presents a special focus on Simon’s recent series Executive Orders, photographs of the pens used to sign presidential orders, through October 21 (our story: nbktimes.com/en/art-culture/almine-rech-taryn-simon/).