Artificial world made of paper

With painstaking care, Demand has recreated an artificial form of nature using cardboard and paper, which, as a photographic work, creates the illusion that the image can actually be encountered in the real world. However, Demand's artificial world of paper has no specific role model. It is not any particular forest that deceives visitors to the Aviation Center, but a generic image of leaves and trees that evokes the idea of domesticated nature within the glass building. The motifs that Thomas Demand only builds to photograph and which he never exhibits seem familiar and yet otherworldly. "Forest", whose counterpart hangs in the canteen of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, reveals itself as a meticulous deception, which addresses the question of origin and image, but also nature and culture in a fascinating way.


Thomas Demand

born in Munich in 1964
lives in Berlin and London

thomasdemand.info

  • 1991 Galerie Guy Ledune, Brüssel
  • 1996 Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • 1997 Monica Sprüth Galerie, Köln
  • 1998 303 Gallery, New York
  • 1999 Tate Gallery London: Art Now 17
  • 2000 Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris
  • 2001 Galleri K, Oslo
  • 2002 Castello di Rivoli, Turin 2003 Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebæk
  • 2009 Thomas Demand, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin
  • 2012 Animations, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines
  • 2012 Model Studies, Esther Schipper Galerie, Berlin
  • 2012 Thomas Demand, Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokio), Berlin
  • 2012 Thomas Demand, Matthew Marks Galerie, New York City
  • 2012 Thomas Demand, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • 2013 Animations, DHC Art Center, Montréal
  • 2014 Dailies 2008-2014, Sprüth Magers (Galerie), Berlin
  • 2014 Model Studies, Avlskarl Gallery, Kopenhagen
  • 2015 Latent Forms, Sprüth Magers (Galerie), London
  • 2014 Pacific Sun, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
  • 2015 Modellstudien, Raketenstation Hombroich, Neuss
  • 2015 Daily Show, The Common Guild, Glasgow,
  • 2015 Model Studies (KŌTŌ-KU), Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokio
  • 2016 Focus, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth