CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 12/4/2016

Taryn Simon's 'Paperwork and the Will of Capital' evokes secrets that can be parsed only with the help of their captions

"What could a flower arrangement have to do with an agreement to settle claims between two nations?" Teju Cole asks in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. Taryn Simon's Paperwork and the Will of Capital "originates in the press and official photographs made at signings of agreements, declarations, memorandums, treaties, communiqués, conventions, contracts and other formalized moments of accord. Simon noticed the ubiquity of floral displays at these occasions. To refocus attention on the workings of power at these signings, she took an oblique approach: a re-creation of the flower arrangements. The flowers were originally a decorative note, a reflex to signal the importance of the occasion. Reconstructed, they are not mere decorations. The people are gone. The documents are absent. The isolated arrangements are like secrets that can be parsed only with the help of their captions." Featured spread deconstructs a centerpiece from the Cairo Communiqué on International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage, 2010.