Bottega Veneta Took Over the Guggenheim for Taryn Simon’s Big Night

What happens when you combine fashion, art, and America’s complicated relationship with itself? A conversation that could go on all night. On Tuesday evening, Bottega Veneta gathered friends of the house at the Guggenheim to experience Father Country I Do Love You, multidisciplinary artist Taryn Simon’s monumental, decade-long undertaking, presented against the backdrop of the nation’s 250th birthday.

Alongside creative director Louise Trotter, a mix of actors, artists, and authors (both well-heeled and Bottega-clad) filled the rotunda. Champagne in one hand, intrecciato purses of all varieties in the other, guests wound their way up Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling ramps, ready to encounter an exhibit that makes its presence felt from the outset. “It definitely starts off with a big wow,” said model Meadow Walker, eyes wide: “You have to see it to know what I’m talking about.” (To divulge much more would spoil the discovery that awaits visitors; let’s just say that one of life’s greatest miracles is the first thing to greet attendees.)

“It’s like a birth,” Simon said, describing the whirlwind of finally presenting the project. “I’m in a daze.” With a procession of admirers approaching her all evening, fresh from exploring the works and eager to share their impressions, there was hardly a second for her to catch her breath. Simon’s summation of it all? “There’s lots of blood. And exhaustion. Amazement, blood, and exhaustion.” As if on cue, novelist Salman Rushdie swept her into a long hug, followed by performance artist Marina Abramović.

The show marks both the first monographic exhibition by a photography-based artist in the museum’s rotunda and the largest debut of new work ever staged at the Guggenheim. Across 42 multipart artworks, which Simon calls “chapters,” she follows the real life of an unnamed federal agent, tracing the consequences of his actions and inactions through photographs, text, videos, and sculptures. “Oh my God! It’s just breathtaking,” exclaimed Julianne Moore in response to the exhibit. “I’m such a huge fan of Taryn’s. She’s an extraordinary artist, and what she manages to do in this show… she physicalizes a feeling, and does it in terms of personal relationships and lived lives.”

Episodes of espionage and government service unfold alongside the ordinary lives caught in their wake, forming a sprawling examination of duty, power, memory, and the backstories we can never know in full. Beneath that narrative runs another, more intimate one: Simon’s father worked for the United States government, but she never learned his full story. And when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she realized she never would. The exhibition brings that deeply personal absence into conversation with a much larger American history.

“We couldn’t think of a more timely moment,” said Melissa Chiu, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. “It really is about history and personal narrative, and it all comes together at this moment in time.”