Thomas Demand

Thomas Demand moulds his world of subjects from small-scale paper and cardboard models, which he stages in elaborate montages to create seemingly real worlds, only to destroy them afterwards. What remains are photographs that bear witness to the artist's sculptural constructions. Demand is not interested in the ideal of mimesis, of skilful imitation. Rather, he reconstructs realities, such as places, things or concrete, historical events, in order to expose our increasingly media-mediated perception and its effects on our concept of reality.

In the work "Detail XII (Bundestag)", the viewer sees a section of a dark box. By cropping the image, Demand estranges the original subject and initially refers to an architectural element. It takes a certain amount of visual experience to make the connection with the Bundestag in Bonn. Here, the rows of seats behind the speaker were panelled in such a way and, in close-ups of the speaker, the panelling depicted formed the backdrop for decades of flaming speakers and reporting on politics that became deeply engraved in people's minds, but also in the history of German politics from 1949 to 1999.