Taryn Simon | Father Country I Do Love You" at the Guggenheim

Nearly a decade in the making, "Father Country I Do Love You" reconstructs the real life of an unidentified American federal agent through 42 individual works, in the largest debut of new work ever mounted at the Guggenheim and the first monographic exhibition of a photographic artist in the museum's rotunda. Throughout the installation, which fills the building's entire spiral space, Taryn Simon traces the chain effects of this anonymous protagonist's actions and omissions—a man who, over decades of work for the U.S. government, acted as an intermediary between large and small events, witnessing occurrences and collecting evidence for others to fit into a larger picture. The exhibition marks a turning point in the artist's career, as she integrates personal stories into her work for the first time: the project is dedicated to Simon's father, whose life—spent between Thailand, Russia, Iran, Israel, China, Afghanistan, and Korea in service of the American government, before a second career manufacturing arcade games—remains incomplete for the artist, who realized she never knew the rest of the story when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Simon recalls a phrase her father repeated: for him, the United States was the best story in the world, as long as someone knew how to tell it.