Taryn Simon Quotes

There is no truth in photography. One can't reproduce an absolute truth. That said, I don't see [my photographs] as being any less truthful than any other photographs.

Archives exist because there's something that can't necessarily be articulated. Something is said in the gaps between all the information.

My work is drawn to the political but avoids an agenda. There is no inherent critique or support.

Photography threatens fantasy.

The photograph doesn't claim to be a participant, or to know, or to be a club member of whatever it's documenting - photography is more demanding when it doesn't pretend to know.

I want to see everything. I guess the positive version of not seeing or not knowing would be preservation of fantasy.

The majority of my work is about preparation.

Photography's history is bound to the mistake, to the accident.

In my work, I construct texts and images. Between those two points the blur occurs. Each is altered by the other again and again, back and forth.