Thomas Demand Preview

Thomas Demand [1964 -] is a German sculptor and photographer. Born in Munich, he currently works between Berlin and Los Angeles. Demand works within the framework of conceptual art, building paper scale models 1: 1 of different spaces -rooms, offices, etc- which he photographs once they are completed. He started studying sculpture at Düsseldorf Academy -a very important institution which has gave us photographers such as Bernd & Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth. In this context, Demand started to produce scale models for his pictures, all of which he destroyed after the photo shoot.  Most of the spaces that Demand has chosen for his models correspond to images of cultural or political relevance, which have already appeared on various media for the past decades. Some of his best-known works include  Kitchen [2004] -which is based on the images of the place in which Saddam Hussein was captured- the series Presidency [2008] -commissioned by the New York Times, in which he portrayed the Oval Office of the White House- and Metzlersaal [2011] -his biggest work to date, perfomed in the hall of Städel Museum. Some of the references recognized by Demand are Hans Holbein,  René Magritte, Gerhard Richter or Edward Ruscha. With monographic exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York [MoMA, 2005] and Berlin National Gallery [2009] -designed by Mies van der Rohe-, Demand is one of the most important contemporary artists practicing today.