Thomas Demand
08 Sep - 20 Oct 2012
Thomas Demand
Pacific Sun, 2012
Video 120 sec, stereo (production still)
© Thomas Demand / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Pacific Sun, 2012
Video 120 sec, stereo (production still)
© Thomas Demand / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present the first solo exhibition by Thomas Demand at
the Berlin gallery. On display are the new film project and a group of current photographic works by the artist.
Pacific Sun (2012) is the central focus of the exhibition and is the artist's most elaborate and ambitious film
project up to now. Already in several film works such as Tunnel (1999) or Rolltreppe / Escalator (2000),
Demand concerned himself with complex constructions of reality by creating a temporal movement by means
of tracking shots and animations within his paper models. The two-minute-long film Pacific Sun is based on a
video clip on YouTube showing the footage of a surveillance camera from the dining room of a cruise ship
during turbulent sea conditions. The pieces of furniture—tables, chairs, cabinets, cutlery, and even a sideboard
—begin to move through the space from one side to the other, as if guided by an invisible force. Demand
reconstructed the interior space and objects out of paper on a scale of 1:1 and, together with a twelve-member
team of animators, reenacted the exact choreography of the incident and photographed every minimal
movement of the objects. Thís gave rise to 2,944 images which were combined into a continuous film
sequence. The neutralized design of the interior space directs the focus above all onto the physical dynamism
as well as the falling movement of the individual objects. In spite of the spatial illusion, which does not convey
an impression that the images are real, the viewer is nonetheless disoriented and unsettled by the temporal
drama and the narrative course of an incipient catastrophe. Arising simultaneously in the viewer is a strange
fascination with the complex choreography of the participating objects.
In addition to the film, Demand is presenting a series of photographs that make reference to press photos
which are to some extent still a part of the most recent reportage. Vault (2012) is based on photographs of a
strongroom concealed beneath the Paris gallery of the art dealer Guy Wildenstein, in which the police
discovered more than thirty missing and embezzled paintings. In the photos published by the press, the
pictures are leaned against walls and shelves in various stackings and reveal only their back sides, and thereby
their objecthood. In his spatial view, Demand pointedly emphasizes the formal correspondence between the
steel beams in the cellar storeroom and the hoarded pictures, which reveal themselves to be framings within
framings. While the preliminary investigation of the gallery proceeds further, Demand's work may also be
interpreted with regard to the current debate concerning the storage of extensive segments of the
Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
In Kontrollraum / Control Room (2011), the artist turns his attention to the interior view of the control room of
the atomic reactor Fukushima in Japan, shortly after the earthquake and the evacuation of the workers. In this
tightly organized spatial structure, with its control buttons and display panels, the only indications of the
catastrophe are the plastic ceiling segments which have become unfastened. The discrepancy between spatial,
functional order and the intrusion of an uncontrollable force may be read as a metaphor for the fragility of the
perception of reality in itself. Precisely this aspect of mutability, which becomes perceptible in situations before
or after an event of far-reaching consequences, is characteristic of the works of Thomas Demand.
Thomas Demand pursues an ongoing interest in the media of sculpture, photography, and architecture, which
he combines in his works in a complex manner. In his filmic and photographic works, he presents reduced
inconographies of historically significant spaces and the events occurring in them, which insert themselves into
cultural memory through images conveyed by the media. Proceeding from these visual patterns, the artist
builds space-encompassing, original-sized models out of fragile materials such as paper or cardboard. He
illuminates them with a clear, sharply focused handling of light and photographs them with a large-format
camera; afterwards he destroys the models to save space, and thereby accentuates the ephemeral duration of
the objects, which remains perceptible in the photographs. Demand's photographs, to which he assigns simple,
generalized titles, actively challenge the memory of the viewer by reconstructing traces and indications of
decisive and in some cases dramatic events. Thus motifs of his works have included the Oval Office of the
American president (Presidency, 2008), the Stasi headquarters after they were stormed (Büro / Office, 1995),
and the bathtub in which the German politician Uwe Barschel died (Badezimmer / Bathroom, 1997). In his
photographs, he links historical events with the capacity of certain architectural works for representing social
utopias and the endeavor to effect changes just as for announcing danger or menace. The artisanal precision
of the models leaves the artificiality of the images always visible: As frozen still lifes, they develop varying
perceptions of reality and leave the viewer space for his own interpreting and imagining.
Thomas Demand lives in Berlin and Los Angeles. He has presented his works during recent years in a variety
of international solo exhibitions, such as at the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004), the Museum of Modern Art, New
York (2005), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2006), the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2008), the Neue
Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2009-2010), as well as the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010). This
year he has realized, among others, extensive individual projects at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham,
Kaldor Public Arts Projects #25, Sydney, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; this last project is also
on display at the Victoria Art Gallery, Melbourne. Moreover, Pacific Sun forms a part of this year's Toronto
International Film Festival.
Sprüth Magers Berlin will also be concurrently presenting the solo exhibition 2 by Gary Hume.
For further information and press enquiries please contact Silvia Baltschun
(sb@spruethmagers.com).
Opening reception: 07.06.2012, 6 - 9 pm
Hours: Tue - Sat, 11 am - 6 pm
the Berlin gallery. On display are the new film project and a group of current photographic works by the artist.
Pacific Sun (2012) is the central focus of the exhibition and is the artist's most elaborate and ambitious film
project up to now. Already in several film works such as Tunnel (1999) or Rolltreppe / Escalator (2000),
Demand concerned himself with complex constructions of reality by creating a temporal movement by means
of tracking shots and animations within his paper models. The two-minute-long film Pacific Sun is based on a
video clip on YouTube showing the footage of a surveillance camera from the dining room of a cruise ship
during turbulent sea conditions. The pieces of furniture—tables, chairs, cabinets, cutlery, and even a sideboard
—begin to move through the space from one side to the other, as if guided by an invisible force. Demand
reconstructed the interior space and objects out of paper on a scale of 1:1 and, together with a twelve-member
team of animators, reenacted the exact choreography of the incident and photographed every minimal
movement of the objects. Thís gave rise to 2,944 images which were combined into a continuous film
sequence. The neutralized design of the interior space directs the focus above all onto the physical dynamism
as well as the falling movement of the individual objects. In spite of the spatial illusion, which does not convey
an impression that the images are real, the viewer is nonetheless disoriented and unsettled by the temporal
drama and the narrative course of an incipient catastrophe. Arising simultaneously in the viewer is a strange
fascination with the complex choreography of the participating objects.
In addition to the film, Demand is presenting a series of photographs that make reference to press photos
which are to some extent still a part of the most recent reportage. Vault (2012) is based on photographs of a
strongroom concealed beneath the Paris gallery of the art dealer Guy Wildenstein, in which the police
discovered more than thirty missing and embezzled paintings. In the photos published by the press, the
pictures are leaned against walls and shelves in various stackings and reveal only their back sides, and thereby
their objecthood. In his spatial view, Demand pointedly emphasizes the formal correspondence between the
steel beams in the cellar storeroom and the hoarded pictures, which reveal themselves to be framings within
framings. While the preliminary investigation of the gallery proceeds further, Demand's work may also be
interpreted with regard to the current debate concerning the storage of extensive segments of the
Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
In Kontrollraum / Control Room (2011), the artist turns his attention to the interior view of the control room of
the atomic reactor Fukushima in Japan, shortly after the earthquake and the evacuation of the workers. In this
tightly organized spatial structure, with its control buttons and display panels, the only indications of the
catastrophe are the plastic ceiling segments which have become unfastened. The discrepancy between spatial,
functional order and the intrusion of an uncontrollable force may be read as a metaphor for the fragility of the
perception of reality in itself. Precisely this aspect of mutability, which becomes perceptible in situations before
or after an event of far-reaching consequences, is characteristic of the works of Thomas Demand.
Thomas Demand pursues an ongoing interest in the media of sculpture, photography, and architecture, which
he combines in his works in a complex manner. In his filmic and photographic works, he presents reduced
inconographies of historically significant spaces and the events occurring in them, which insert themselves into
cultural memory through images conveyed by the media. Proceeding from these visual patterns, the artist
builds space-encompassing, original-sized models out of fragile materials such as paper or cardboard. He
illuminates them with a clear, sharply focused handling of light and photographs them with a large-format
camera; afterwards he destroys the models to save space, and thereby accentuates the ephemeral duration of
the objects, which remains perceptible in the photographs. Demand's photographs, to which he assigns simple,
generalized titles, actively challenge the memory of the viewer by reconstructing traces and indications of
decisive and in some cases dramatic events. Thus motifs of his works have included the Oval Office of the
American president (Presidency, 2008), the Stasi headquarters after they were stormed (Büro / Office, 1995),
and the bathtub in which the German politician Uwe Barschel died (Badezimmer / Bathroom, 1997). In his
photographs, he links historical events with the capacity of certain architectural works for representing social
utopias and the endeavor to effect changes just as for announcing danger or menace. The artisanal precision
of the models leaves the artificiality of the images always visible: As frozen still lifes, they develop varying
perceptions of reality and leave the viewer space for his own interpreting and imagining.
Thomas Demand lives in Berlin and Los Angeles. He has presented his works during recent years in a variety
of international solo exhibitions, such as at the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004), the Museum of Modern Art, New
York (2005), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2006), the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2008), the Neue
Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2009-2010), as well as the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010). This
year he has realized, among others, extensive individual projects at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham,
Kaldor Public Arts Projects #25, Sydney, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; this last project is also
on display at the Victoria Art Gallery, Melbourne. Moreover, Pacific Sun forms a part of this year's Toronto
International Film Festival.
Sprüth Magers Berlin will also be concurrently presenting the solo exhibition 2 by Gary Hume.
For further information and press enquiries please contact Silvia Baltschun
(sb@spruethmagers.com).
Opening reception: 07.06.2012, 6 - 9 pm
Hours: Tue - Sat, 11 am - 6 pm