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24/9/2009

Thomas Demand

Museum Moderner Kunst MUMOK, Wien

curated by Edelbert Köb

In the Factory the MUMOK is presenting Presidency (2008) and Embassy (2007), the two well-known work series by Thomas Demand, born in 1964 in Munich. Demand, who is described as a documentary witness of our worlds of media and creates his impact beyond photography as an illusionist, is one of the most sought-after artists on the contemporary scene. His large-format photographic works have already been acclaimed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and during the Biennale in Venice. At present the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin is presenting a major retrospective of his works titled “Nationalgalerie”.

Thomas Demand’s pictures often show deserted architectural constructs of explosive social or political events that are anchored in our collective consciousness. Although the photographs seem at first to be of real, existing places, they prove at second glance to be clever reconstructions of reality. Starting out with well-known photographic sources from the mass media, the artist constructs true-to-detail models made of paper and cardboard, which he photographs with a large-format camera, only to destroy them again. Thus these life-size reconstructions by Thomas Demand eschew all people, all signs of wear and tear, and all traces and clues of the “scene-of-the-crime” or theatre of action that might have been newsworthy and were visible on the original photos. This gives these “phantom pictures” the effect of having just just been abandoned or newly created.

Among the pictures he alludes to are the security gate which Mohammed Atta passed through on the fateful day of 11 September 2001 to get into the airport waiting room (Gate, 2004 — MUMOK Collection) and the photos, still lingering in our memory, of the tunnel in which Princess Diana accidentally met her death (Tunnel, 1999). Demand’s work is a critical and paradoxical commentary on the equivocal promise of authenticity in media images, their self-evidence and their diffuse proliferation in the collective memory. His works — based on a sculptural concept — are dependent on a work process that is carried to extremes in its personal and time-consuming intensity. Numerous associates are employed in producing the three-dimensional paper scenery for the major projects.

Presidency (2008)

Thomas Demand turns his attention in the five-part work Presidency to one of the most prominent theatres of power — the US President’s office in the White House. He built a meticulously detailed model of the Oval Office in the original size out of paper, cardboard and confetti, which he photographed and then destroyed. The series was initially commissioned for a cover story of the “New York Times Magazine” of 9 November 2008, five days after the presidential election in the United States. Presidency shows the medium suddenly playing a new role: while Thomas Demand usually takes his images and motifs from magazines, this time the magazine itself commissioned the replica, considering it more pertinent to the abstract and fundamental content of the accompanying text.

Embassy (2007)

The Embassy series shows Thomas Demand investigating a scandalous incident that took place in January 2001 in the Niger Embassy in Rome: after a break-in, blank stationery and stamps disappeared that were used later to fabricate proofs of a supposed operation to smuggle uranium into Iraq. The faked documents were eventually used by the Bush administration as a legitimation for the war in Iraq. To produce the nine-part work-group of Embassy — it shows the exterior façade as well as the staircase and the embassy interior — the artist had to depart from his usual work method. Since there weren’t any photos published of the incident, Demand himself took on the role of reporter. He managed to gain access to the sealed-off rooms and afterwards replicated the ambassador’s office in his studio from memory. The artist sees his work as “semi-journalism”: “I’m not concerned with truth, with facts, facts, facts, but with a story to which the picture’s missing.” Both works are linked to each other not only through their motif as places of state representation. The extreme popularity of the Oval Office is in diametrical contrast to the clandestine site of the Niger Embassy, yet both places are historical “theatres” of action in Demand’s ideation.

Press contact
Eva Engelberger Telephone +43-1-52500-1400 eva.engelberger@mumok.at

Barbara Hammerschmied Telephone +43-1-52500-1450 barbara.hammerschmied@mumok.at

Opening 25 September 2009, 7 pm

MUMOK (MUMOK Factory)
Museumsplatz 1, A — 1070 Vienna
Opening times Monday -Sunday 10 am — 6 pm Thursday 10 am — 9 pm
Admission normal EUR 9.- reduced EUR 7.20 and EUR 6.50

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