Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon generously donated Anthem, 2015 on the occasion of the new Tate Modern opening. Simon produced 50 music box movements, each custom-made to play the national anthem of one of the world’s top 50 countries, ranked by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Created as a limited edition of 35, each work is accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate.

Anthem, 2015 repositions booming nationalistic melodies as something more quiet and fragile. As multiple boxes are cranked at the same time, new relationships and cacophonies emerge. Yet the physical positions of the boxes remain fixed in a strict hierarchical order.

• Artist Taryn Simon
• Artwork Anthem
• Dimensions 84.5 x 38.1 x 12.7 cm
• Material Stainless steel music box movements and stained maple
• Edition Edition of 35, accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate
• Date of work 2015

Taryn Simon (b. 1975, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist who has worked in photography, text, sculpture, film/video, and performance. Simon directs our attention to familiar systems of organisation, bloodlines, criminal investigations, flower arrangements, making visible the contours of power and authority hidden within.

Solo exhibitions include Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012); Tate Modern, London (2011); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2011); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2007). Permanent collections include Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern, the Guggenheim Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her work is included in the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). She is a graduate of Brown University and a Guggenheim Fellow. Simon lives and works in New York.