ArcHiTEcTUrE, DISPATCHES ArT, mUsic, ArcHiTEcTUrE, film, sHOppinG, nEWs AnD THinGs TO mAkE AnD DO… ArT, mUsic, ArcHiTEcTUrE, film, sHOppinG, nEWs AnD THinGs TO mAkE AnD DO…
Under the skin: taryn simon
in a country as attentive to surfaces
as the Us, it’s arguable that
photography’s first duty is to move
past the easily visible. new York-
based artist Taryn simon doesn’t only
do so, but also questions our means
of getting there. for her previous
project, The Innocents (stemming from
a New York Times assignment in 2000),
she documented Americans who’d been
wrongfully imprisoned, recording them
at the scene of their arrest, of their
misidentification, of their alibi or
of the crime itself. Her fascination,
though, is equally with the problem
of how we see, and she turns the
critical spotlight on photography
my precioUs:
itself. roy criner, standing amid
jochem hendricks
a pile of logs in Houston, Texas (his
alibi location), was just one of those
imprisoned on the basis of victims
How much is a life worth?
incorrectly iD’ing the perpetrator based
About 0.5 carats of diamond
on mugshots and polaroids.
if you’re a budgerigar or a
Each of these works comes with
whopping 2 carats if you’re
an implicit background story.
photography’s questionable innocence also
a hen. At least those are
The footballer’s leg, for
forms part of the unnerving undertow of
the answers you’ll get in an
example, is presented
simon’s new series, An American Index of
exhibition of work by Jochem
alongside a toenail (which,
the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007). for
Hendricks that opens in london
aside from signalling the
this, she toured the Us, gravitating
this month.
source material of the diamond,
towards hidden or inaccessible aspects:
is a useful reminder of the
from radioactive materials in nuclear
The artist has his feathery
crystal’s tiny size) and some
waste storage facilities to hibernating
corpses cooked down to
tobacco (the leg is the offcut
black bears, from inbred animals at a
carbon, converted to graphite
of an amputation necessitated
wildlife reserve to a 1989 edition of
and grown into a synthetic
by nicotine poisoning). Dig
Playboy printed in Braille. The results,
diamond. The tiny gems are
further on the artist’s
variously sad, weird and uncanny, and
then presented for our
website and you’ll find hints
often benefiting from both the hard
consumption on pedestals,

at the difficulty of acquiring

clarity and sensuality of large-format ,
and surrounded by a wreath of
n
surplus limbs and mutterings
photography, feel like a relativist,
o
i
their own feathers. As much
t
about his adventures in the
doubt-laced update of larry sultan and
a
d
as this is a story about
n
murky world of the Eastern
mike mandel’s 1977 Evidence series.
u
o
science (the diamondisation
F
European institutions that
We’re far more aware now that the camera

d
process Hendricks relies on
n
make his gems. Wells would
can mislead: on the basis of simon’s
a

is one about which nineteenth- e
have been proud.
taxonomy of its darkened corners, do we
g
century political economists
u
f
convict America? And if so, of what?
e
and science-fiction writers,
R n
Other works on display include
a
Martin Herbert
e i
like karl marx and H.G. Wells,
f s
flasks of tears, the contents
i o
l g
once fantasised, and which
d a
of a room shredded and placed TArYn simOn
l G
i /
became industrially possible
W l
in a sack, and containerfuls
13 sEpTEmBEr – 11 nOVEmBEr
d
k i
during the mid-twentieth
e e
of hand-counted quantities
THE pHOTOGrApHErs’ GAllErY, e t
r s
century), it’s clearly also
(in the millions) of sand
lOnDOn, WWW.pHOTOnET.OrG.Uk
C
y
e s
about aesthetics – he selects
n e
grains. All of which provoke
i t
t r
his birds for their coloured
n u
thoughts about spiritual and
e o
p c
plumage, for the quality of r
mineral endurance, exchange u .
wreath they’ll produce.
T t
values, science, faith and
s
, i
g t
fiction. You might describe
n r
i a
But what you really want to
d
Hendricks as the thinking
e e
e h
know is what price a human?
r t
man’s Damien Hirst. Although
b
n ©
To date, however, Hendricks
I
the German would presumably
.
e 7
has only managed an ear and a
v 0
have to carbonise the
i 0
t 2
leg. The former (presented as
c
population of a small town to
e ,
l s
a stud earring) weighs in at
e a
produce something on the scale
S s
n
one fifth of a budgerigar, the
, a
of the Brit’s overhyped skull.
) k
y r
latter just under two-and-a- n A
Mark Rappolt n
half hens.
e ,
K s
( g
n
JOcHEm HEnDricks
r i
e r
g p
UnTil 29 sEpTEmBEr
i S
T
Tears, 1994-2002, glass bottles,
HAUncH Of VEnisOn, lOnDOn
a
e k
silicone, tears. t e
WWW.HAUncHOfVEnisOn.cOm
i r
courtesy Haunch of Venison, london h u
W E

Artreview 30
Dispatches_SEPT.indd 4 8/8/07 10:44:12
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