“Paperwork and the Will of Capital” is another of Taryn Simon’s deeply researched, politically weighty photographic projects. Here Simon zeroes in on the floral centerpieces present at the signing of three dozen international trade agreements, treaties, and other diplomatic accords over the past 50 years. A botanist collaborator identified the exact species of flora in archival photographs, and Simon recreated the bouquets in her studio with some 4,000 blooms imported from a flower auction in the Netherlands. Each approximately 7-by-6-foot photo is encased in a mahogany frame and paired with a detailed text panel explaining the significance of the event at which the pictured bouquet was present and the types of flowers therein (e.g. anthuriums, dentrobiums, orchids, and tea roses were used in a 1994 Phnom Penh ceremony formalizing an understanding between Cambodia and Australia about the resettlement of refugees). Also on view are 12 plinthlike concrete sculptures topped with the dried, flattened flower specimens Simon used for the photos.—Leigh Anne Miller
Pictured: Taryn Simon: Memorandum of Understanding between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Government of Australia Relating to the Settlement of Refugees in Cambodia. Ministry of Interior, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, September 26, 2014, 2015, archival inkjet print in mahogany frames with text in windowed compartment on archival herbarium paper, 85 by 73¼ by 2¾ inches unframed. Courtesy Gagosian, New York.