Museum report·New York
Taryn Simon fills Guggenheim rotunda with 42-part portrait of America
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has given its entire rotunda to Taryn Simon for "Father Country I Do Love You" (September 18, 2026–March 14, 2027): the first monographic rotunda exhibition by a photography-based artist in the museum's history, comprising 42 interconnected "chapters" tracing an unnamed federal agent's life, developed over nearly a decade.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York has devoted its entire rotunda to Taryn Simon in "Father Country I Do Love You," on view from September 18, 2026 through March 14, 2027. The exhibition is the first monographic rotunda presentation in the museum's history by a photography-based artist, and the largest debut of new work the museum has ever staged. Developed over nearly a decade, the show gathers 42 interconnected artworks — described as chapters — in photography, text, video, and sculpture, tracing the real life of an unnamed federal agent. It integrates personal material into Simon's research-based practice for the first time, and is dedicated to the artist's father, who worked for the U.S. government in Thailand, later made and sold arcade games, and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Organized by curator Nat Trotman and initiated by former Artistic Director Nancy Spector, the exhibition treats family history as an instrument for examining the nation itself. An artist's book copublished with Hatje Cantz accompanies the show, and an audio guide on Bloomberg Connects features narration by Jodie Foster alongside an AI voice clone of Simon's father. By occupying the full spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright's rotunda, Simon turns the building's most emblematic space into a single narrative circuit, asking what it means to inherit — and to reconstruct — a country's story through one man's life. The commission arrives at a moment when the Guggenheim has been programming its rotunda for ambitious, career-spanning statements, and Simon's fusion of documentary rigor with family history makes hers one of the most intimate and expansive of these undertakings.


