Taryn Simon’s major exhibition opens today at the Guggenheim: ‘Father Country I Do Love You’ fills the entire rotunda

Today, September 18, 2026, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York opens the exhibition “Taryn Simon | Father Country I Do Love You,” a monumental installation that fills the museum’s entire rotunda with 42 new works — photography, text, video and sculpture — never before exhibited.

The project, nearly a decade in the making, traces the real life of an unnamed federal agent through 42 interconnected works, or “chapters.” Through duty, devotion, loss and chance, the agent acted as an intermediary: he witnessed large and small events and gathered evidence that others would place within the larger frame. Traps and deceptions, traitors and child soldiers, impeachment and Hollywood, massive attacks and poisons: everything he touched spread to the outer edges of nations and lives he would never know.

The exhibition marks a turning point in Simon’s career, as she integrates personal history into her artistic practice for the first time. “Father Country I Do Love You” is dedicated to the artist’s father, who lived in Thailand and traveled to Russia, Iran, Israel, China, Afghanistan and Korea while working for the U.S. government, before starting a second career producing and selling arcade video games. Simon never learned his full story, and when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she realized she never would.

This is the first monographic exhibition by a photography-based artist in the Guggenheim’s rotunda, and the largest debut of new works ever organized at the museum. The exhibition opens during the 250th anniversary of the United States and will remain open through March 14, 2027. The works will enter the Guggenheim’s permanent collection, and the museum together with publisher Hatje Cantz will publish a companion artist book. The curator is Nat Trotman; the exhibition was initiated by former artistic director Nancy Spector.

Source: Guggenheim (press release)