Taryn Simon's 'Father Country I Do Love You' at Guggenheim Explores Espionage and Doubt

Key facts

• Taryn Simon's exhibition 'Father Country I Do Love You' is on view at the Guggenheim Museum.
• The show opens with two text panels recounting stories from Simon's father and her meeting with a retired FBI agent.
• Simon's father told of an intelligence officer in Bangkok who died either eaten by a tiger or kidnapped by the Chinese.
• The FBI agent's work involved analyzing remnants of TWA Flight 800 (1996), sifting debris at the Pentagon after 9/11, deploying to Nairobi after the 1998 embassy bombing with 900 other agents, babysitting children of the model who entrapped Marion Barry in 1990, and setting up the evidence room for Bill Clinton's impeachment.
• The exhibition includes hundreds, possibly thousands, of photographs, sculptures, video, and an exhibition design replicating a Bangkok spy's living room.
• The introductory texts are set against teak paneling—a replica of a replica of the living room Simon helped her father build in their family home.
• The show presents information that sounds like conspiracy theories but is asserted as facts, while maintaining doubt through unconfirmable tales.
• Simon met the retired FBI agent a decade ago; his stories were shared via phone calls, text messages, and meetings.