If 'No Trespassing' signs provoke a desire to explore forbidden territory, then hurry to the exhibition of Taryn Simon's work at the Whitney Museum of American Art. A selection of images from An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar is on view through June 24.

The photographer, known for The Innocents, a wrenching portrayal of people wrongly convicted of violent crimes who were released from their prison sentences based on DNA testing, again plumbs the dark side of American culture to show how the camera's artifice can be used to re-explain reality.

An American Index examines the official control of information from the fields of science, medicine, government, security, and agronomy. Sometimes taking a year to secure the necessary permissions from governmental and other institutions, she then goes behind the scenes to photograph what is off limits to most of us. Accompanied by her hyper-didactic texts, they create a critical atmosphere that extends the camera's ability to confound fact and fiction.

Among the locations that fall under her scrutiny are a nuclear waste storage facility, the C.I.A.'s art collection, the Avian Quarantine Facility at Stewart Air Force Base, the National Center for Natural Products Research, and the contraband room of the U.S. Customs Service at J.F.K. Airport.

An image from the nuclear waste facility seems like an artistic exploration of light, color and design until we learn that the storage capsules contain the highest quantity of radioactive material in one place in the United States. A photograph of lush marijuana plants growing under lights at the only facility in the United States federally licensed to cultivate cannabis for research almost demands a second reading of Michael Pollan's scientific thriller, The Botany of Desire.

Using a large format camera, unless prohibited by authorities, and available light, uneven at times, Taryn Simon has created a style that gives this collection its faux-journalistic edge. While many of the subjects create a compelling case for public access to privileged information, she occasionally takes a lighter view of menacing events. One such picture is a luminous snow scene whose silence is broken by a preemptive artillery strike on an avalanche-in-the-making.

Photographs, top to bottom: Research Marijuana Crop Grow Room, National Center for Natural Products Research, Oxford, Mississippi; Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, Cherenkov Radiation, Hanford Site, Department of Energy, Southeastern Washington State; Avian Quarantine Facility The New York Animal Import Center Newburgh, New York. Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art.