Thomas Demand

Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.

Demand had his first solo exhibition at Tanit Galerie in Munich in 1992. In 2004 the Kunsthaus Bregenz mounted the first comprehensive presentation of Demand’s major works from 1994 until 2004. Demand’s work later was the subject of mid-career retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2005 and at the Neue Nationalgalerie in 2009. Other solo exhibitions include Serpentine Gallery (2006), London, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, the Fondazione Prada, Venice (both 2007), and the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris (2001).

Demand is known for making photographs of three-dimensional models that look like real images of rooms and other spaces, often sites loaded with social and political meanings. He thus describes himself not as a photographer, but as a conceptual artist for whom photography is an intrinsic part of his creative process. Having studied sculpture under Fritz Schwegler at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alongside Katharina Fritsch and Thomas Schütte, Demand began his career as a sculptor. In 1993, he began to use photography to record his elaborate, life-sized paper-and-cardboard constructions of actually or formerly existing environments and interior spaces, and soon started to create constructions for the sole purpose of photographing them. The photograph he takes of this model with a large-format-camera is the final stage of his work, and it is only this image, most often executed in an edition of six, that is exhibited unframed behind Plexiglas, not the models. On the contrary, Demand destroys his “life-size environments” after he has photographed them. One notable exception is his large scale model for Grotto (2006), inspired by a postcard of a Mallorcan grotto Demand has never visited, which was later exhibited. The life sized models are highly detailed, yet they retain subtle but deliberate flaws and anachronisms, such as an unnaturally uniform texture; according to art critic Michael Kimmelman, “the reconstructions were meant to be close to, but never perfectly, realistic so that the gap between truth and fiction would always subtly show”.

In The Dailies (2012), Demand for the first time experimented with the long-outmoded process of dye transfer, which involves fixing dyes with gelatine to ordinary paper. The practice was chosen by the artist for the saturated, but not garish colours, the spatial depth, the intense darkness, the durability and the extent to which the three primary colours can be modified, unlike ordinary prints.

While the works’ titles – Studio (1997), Zimmer (Room) (1996), Treppenhaus (Staircase) (1995) – are studiously devoid of superfluous information, the subjects represented in Demand’s photographs often relate to pre-existing press images showing scenes of cultural or political relevance. The New York hotel room in which L. Ron Hubbard worked on Dianetics, for example, was the starting point for Zimmer (Room) (1996). Zeichensaal (Drafting Room) (1996) is inspired by a photograph of the studio of Richard Vorhölzer, the architect who was in charge of much urban planning for postwar Germany; Scheune (Barn) (1997) is based on a Hans Namuth photograph of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in Pollock’s East Hampton studio.; Studio (1997) derives from a photograph of the 1970s television set for the German “What’s My Line?”. Later in his career Demand turned his interest towards the political world: Podium (2000) represents the location where Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević gave his Gazimestan speech on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the Serbian defeat by the Turks; in Attempt (2005), Demand has reconstructed the studio of an artist whom Baader-Meinhof terrorists targeted in the 1970s in order to blow up the Karlsruhe house of the state’s prosecutor next door; Kitchen (2004) is based on soldiers’ snapshots of the compound near Tikrit where Saddam Hussein was captured. Demand’s series Yellowcake (2007) portrays the Nigerian Embassy in Rome, the site of a burglary in January 2001 that was used to prove Hussein’s attempt to purchase uranium. More recently, the photograph Kontrollraum (Control Room) (2011), for instance, purports to show the interior of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant during its tsunami-induced meltdown.

Commissioned by The New York Times, Demand’s “Presidency” series depicting the Oval Office appeared on the cover and inside The New York Times Magazine, November 9, 2008 issue following the election of President Barack Obama. The five large prints, simply titled Presidency I-V, were created in the last weeks of the Bush presidency and later, with the support of Ronald Lauder and other donors, given to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in 2009. In 2011, Demand created Metzler-Saal (2011), his largest site-specific work to date. Commissioned by the Städel Museum, the photographic work appears as if the museum’s main hall is lined floor to ceiling with deep purple curtains. Demand was inspired by the drapery depicted in many of the Städel’s Old Master paintings.

A result of a residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles where he discovered the archive of architect John Lautner, Model Studies (2011) is the first time that Demand photographed architectural models that were not his own. The series comprises a total of 32 close-ups of cardboard, tar paper, and foam core panels, depicting the study models from many angles.

Because Demand is working from models, the absence of people in his photographs is “conspicuous and thematic”. The closest Demand has ever come to depicting people are the cut-out silhouettes of politicians and heads of state depicted in the picture frames arranged on Sir Edward Heath’s grand piano (Flügel/Grand Piano, 1993). Furthermore, every trace of language has completely vanished: the papers strewn across the work table and floor in Büro (Office) (1995) have no text on them; the labels next to the doorbells that are the subject of Hinterhaus (2005) are variously colored but bear no names.

Demand cites Gerhard Richter and Ed Ruscha as sources of inspiration.

Biography

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021
  • Thomas Demand: Recortes, Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid, Spain
  • Thomas Demand: Mundo de Papel, Centro Botín, Santander, Spain
  • Thomas Demand. Mirror Without Memory, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
  • Thomas Demand, Sprüth Magers, London, Mayfair, London, UK
2020
  • Thomas Demand: House of Card, M – Museum Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
2018
  • Thomas Demand: ArchivMaterial / New Stop Motion, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Thomas Demand, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (523 W 24th), Chelsea, New York, USA
2016
  • Thomas Demand, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Ft. Worth, Texas, USA
  • Thomas Demand, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Paloma, Monte-carlo, Monaco
2015
  • Thomas Demand: Latent Forms, Sprüth Magers, London, Mayfair, London, UK
  • Thomas Demand: Daily Show, The Common Guild, Glasgow, UK
  • Thomas Demand: Model Studies, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (complex665), Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  • New Discoveries and Other Obsessions, MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2014
  • Thomas Demand: Pacific Sun, LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Park La Brea, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Thomas Demand: Dailies 2008-2014, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2013
  • Thomas Demand: Dailies, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (526 W 22nd), Chelsea, New York, USA
  • Thomas Demand: Animations, PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • Thomas Demand: Animations, PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2012
  • Thomas Demand, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Thomas Demand: Model Studies, Esther Schipper, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany
  • Thomas Demand, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  • Thomas Demand, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (522 W 22nd), Chelsea, New York, USA
  • Thomas Demand: Model Studies, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
2011
  • Thomas Demand, PKM Trinity Gallery, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
2010
  • Thomas Demand: Nationalgalerie, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2009
  • Thomas Demand, MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria
  • Thomas Demand, Neue Nationalgalerie, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
2008
  • Thomas Demand, Sprüth Magers, London, London, UK
  • Thomas Demand Fondación Telefónica, Madrid, Esther Schipper, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
  • Thomas Demand: Camera, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
  • Thomas Demand, Ceal Floyer 5 Minutes Later Kunst-Werke, Berlin, Esther Schipper, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021
  • Art For Happiness, Gallery Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Art of Illusion: Photography and Perceptual Play, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
  • Mies In Mind, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • The Youngest Day, Carlier / Gebauer, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Out of Place, Drill Hall Gallery, ANU, Canberra, Australia
  • Collection 3: Between Visible and Invisible, National Museum of Art, Osaka (Kokuritsu Kokusai Bijutsukan), Osaka, Japan
  • The Future We Choose, Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, Chelsea, New York, USA
  • A Fire in My Belly, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Home Life, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (523 W 24th), Chelsea, New York, USA
  • Continuously Contemporary: New Works From The Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation. Chapter II, Kunstmuseum Basel, Gegenwart, Basel, Switzerland
2020
  • On Everyone’s Lips. From Pieter Bruegel to Cindy Sherman, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
  • Terminal, City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
  • The Art Of Illusion: Photography And Perceptual Play, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
  • Body. Gaze. Power. A Cultural History of the Bath, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-baden, Germany
  • Perspektiven der Fotografie, Gallery Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Works From the Julia Stoschek Collection, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
2019
  • “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”. Selections from The Bailey Collection, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • At Night. Between dream and reality, Sammlung Goetz (Goetz Collection), Munich, Germany
  • At Night. Between Dream and Reality – Sammlung Goetz im Haus der Kunst, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
  • Taka Ishii Gallery 25th Anniversary Group Exhibition: Survived!, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (complex665), Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  • From Andreas Gursky to Shirin Neshat: Here We Are Today, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, Germany
  • Here we are today: A View of the World in Photography and Video Art, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, Germany
  • Fiction and Fabrication, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal
  • A Time Capsule Continued, Parkett Editions, Zürich, Switzerland
  • Works from the Collection: Spaces and Places, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Ft. Worth, Texas, USA
  • Subjects Of Life: Photography In The Mudam Collection, Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
2018
  • The Last Image. Photography and Death, C/O Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Neuerwerbungen Herbst 2018, Gallery Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • European Month of Photography 2018, BORCH Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  • I Don’t Like Fiction, I Like History, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • She sees the shadows, The Roberts Institute of Art, UK
  • She sees the shadows, Mostyn, Wales, UK
  • DRAF x Mostyn: She sees the shadows, Vigo Gallery, St. James’s, London, UK
  • German Art, Galleri K, Oslo, Norway
  • Image profile: Aspects of the Documentary in MMK’s Photography Collection, MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt – ZOLLAMT, Frankfurt, Germany
  • Narrated, Galerie Tanit, Munich, Munich, Germany
  • Cut! Paper Play in Contemporary Photography, Getty Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Group Exhibition, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (complex665), Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
2017
  • ISelf Collection: The Upset Bucket, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK
  • Leonard Cohen, MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • Perception is Reality. On the Construction of Reality and Virtual Worlds, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany
  • Thomas Demand, Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Brice Marden, Ken Price, Martin Puryear, Charles Ray, Anne Truitt, Terry Winters, Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles (Santa Monica), Los Angeles, California, USA
  • The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied, Fondazione Prada, Venice, Venice, Italy
  • Mentally Yellow (High Noon), Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
  • Mental Yellow. High Noon, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • Variable Dimensions: Artists and Architecture, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal
2016
  • Primary Structures and Speculative Forms, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  • Photography Reinvented: The Collection of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Washington D.C., District Of Columbia, USA
  • Béton, Kunsthalle Wien, Museumsquartier, Vienna, Austria
  • Collection 13: Toward A New Museum Of Contemporary Art, CA2M, Madrid, Spain
  • Pavlova’s Dawg and Other Works by Gallery Artists, Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles (N Orange Grove), Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Art From Elsewhere, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, UK
  • Thomas Demand: L’image volée, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Milan, Italy
  • TeleGen: Kunst und Fernsehen, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein
  • Made in Germany: Contemporary Art from the Rubell Family Collection, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, USA
2015
  • Skulptur I, Gallery Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Thomas Demand & Miriam Böhm, Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid, Spain
  • TELE-GEN: Kunst und Fernsehen, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • Flirting With Strangers: Encounters with Works from the Collection, Lower Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
  • Düsseldorf Photography: Bernd and Hilla Becher and Beyond, Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, London, UK
  • Covert Operations: Investigating the Known Unknowns, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California, USA
  • Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition, Hammer Museum, Westwood, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Future Present, Schaulager, Basel, Switzerland
  • Space Between, The FLAG Art Foundation, Chelsea, New York, USA
  • TELE-Gen, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • German Art 2015, Galleri K, Oslo, Norway
  • Model, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic
2014
  • Group Exhibition, BORCH Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  • Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950, Kunsthaus Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria
  • Ars Viva 2014/15, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
  • One Million Years – System and Symptom, Kunstmuseum Basel, Gegenwart, Basel, Switzerland
  • Covert Operations: Investigating The Known Unknowns, SMoCA, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
  • Sigmund Freud: Play on the Burden of Representation, Lower Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
  • Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950, Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
  • PAPARAZZI!, SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
  • Love Story: Anne and Wolfgang Titze Collection, Lower Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
  • Unstable Places: New in Contemporary Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
  • Stanze/Rooms, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
  • Beneath the Ground: From Kafka to Kippenberger, K21, Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Room Service On the Hotel in the Arts and Artists in the Hotel, Kuckei + Kuckei, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
2013
  • Island, The Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder, Colorado, USA
  • a Puppet, a Pauper, a Pirate, a Poet, a Pawn and a King, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand
  • Why Not Live for Art? II, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  • Lens Drawings, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, Paris, France
  • Collection Sandretto Re Rebaudengo: Have you seen me before?, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK
  • Have you seen me before, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
  • Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  • HEIMsuchung, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • Contemporary German Art: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
  • More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  • Love Meal, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
2012
  • Confounding: Contemporary Photography, NGV International, Melbourne, Australia
  • Sculpture Is Everything: Contemporary Works From The Collection, QAGOMA, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
  • Lost Places: Places of Photography, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
  • Pink Caviar: New works in the Collection 2009-2011, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
  • Focal Points: Art and Photography, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
  • German Photography 1960 – 2012: A Survey, Ben Brown Fine Arts, Hong Kong, Central, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Le Silence Une Fiction, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Paloma, Monte-carlo, Monaco
  • Ashes and Gold A World’s Journey, Marta Herford, Herford, Germany
2011
  • September 11, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York, USA
  • Precarious Worlds: Contemporary Art from Germany, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
  • La Carte D’Après Nature, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (522 W 22nd), Chelsea, New York, USA
  • Zwei Sammler – Thomas Olbricht and Harald Falckenberg, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
  • Left Behind: Selected Gifts from the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., District Of Columbia, USA
  • Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2011, Ambika P3, Marylebone, London, UK
  • From A to Z: 26 Great Photographs from the Norton Collection, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
  • Things are Queer, Marta Herford, Herford, Germany
  • Berliner Zimmer, Krobath, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • German Art, Galleri K, Oslo, Norway
2010
  • 21st Century: Art in the First Decade, QAGOMA, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
  • Plus Ultra, Mattatoio Rome, Rome, Italy
  • 01 – 10, Esther Schipper, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany
  • A Moving Plan B: Chapter One, Drawing Room London, London, UK
  • 12th International Architecture Biennale 2010, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
  • SITE Santa Fe Eighth International Biennial: The Dissolve, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
  • Photo Show 2010, Galleri K, Oslo, Norway
  • Michael Craig-Martin: Art, Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
  • Julia Stoschek Collection: I Want to See How You See, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
  • Nuit Blanche, Patricia Low Contemporary, Gstaad, Gstaad, Switzerland
  • Walls Are Talking: Wallpaper, Art and Culture, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
2009
  • The Reach of Realism, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami, Miami, Florida, USA
  • Yellow and Green, MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
  • Mark Wallinger Curates THE RUSSIAN LINESMAN: Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds, Southbank Centre, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
  • Global Design, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Ausstellungsstrasse, Zürich, Switzerland
2008
  • The Same River Twice Part 1, Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane, Australia
  • Peter Saville : Accessories To An Artwork, Paul Stolper, London, UK
  • Attention to Detail, The FLAG Art Foundation, Chelsea, New York, USA
  • … 5 minutes later, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
  • Broken Home, 1997/2007, The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA

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