Taryn Simon's Guggenheim Debut Recreates Jim Thompson's Bangkok Living Room

In less than three weeks, Taryn Simon's exhibition, Father Country I Do Love You, will debut at the Guggenheim, making history as the first solo show by a photography-based artist in the museum's iconic spiral rotunda and the largest presentation of new works ever held there. The multidisciplinary artist incorporates various historical narratives, including her own family's story. The Guggenheim's lobby is being reimagined to resemble the Bangkok living room of Jim Thompson, a silk merchant and spy who disappeared in 1967. Simon's father, a US government employee in Thailand at the time, suspected either the Chinese or a tiger was involved. When she was nine, Simon and her father recreated Thompson's wood-paneled study on Long Island, and she has now reconstructed it at the Guggenheim using faux teak, a task she found quite challenging. While seated in a conference room at the museum, Simon appeared somewhat overwhelmed as preparations for the exhibition progressed, noting that the show is structured almost like a novel.