Thomas Demand
dal 15/9/2009 al 16/1/2010
Segnalato da
15/9/2009
Thomas Demand
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
The approximately 40 works on display, which include new pieces, deal with social and historical events since 1945 and their background. However, Demand's pictures do not merely bear reference to exceptional moments in history. Alongside momentous political and societal events and instantly recognizable scenes, the show includes works which depict the private and incidental, but which represent equally a kaleidoscopic part of a particular time and society. Demand is not a photographer in the classical sense, but rather someone who documents our various media worlds and is both a reproducer and an illusionist.
Thomas Demand, one of the most influential and pioneering artists of our day, will
present an extensive solo show at the Neue Nationalgalerie from September 2009.
While he has had major exhibitions dedicated to his work in such cities as London,
New York and Zurich, the show in Berlin will be his largest presentation in Germany
to date. Entitled Nationalgalerie (National Gallery), the exhibition is not, however, a
general retrospective of his work up to now, rather it is purposefully dedicated to one
theme in particular – perhaps the most important in all of Demand’s richly diverse
body of work: Germany. Correspondingly, the exhibition coincides with the
anniversaries of two pivotal historical events in German history: the foundation of the
Federal Republic of Germany 60 years ago and the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years
ago.
The approximately 40 works on display, which include new, previously unshown
pieces, deal with social and historical events since 1945 and their immediate
background. However, Demand’s pictures do not merely bear reference to
exceptional moments in history. Alongside momentous political and societal events
and instantly recognizable scenes, the exhibition includes works which depict the
private and incidental, but which represent equally a kaleidoscopic part of a particular
time and society.
Photography is the medium in which Thomas Demand’s works are preserved and
exhibited, but his working methods transcend this medium. The artist often finds his
subjects in the mass media using them as the starting point to (re)create a particular
spatial situation as paper sculptures, which are then made into a two-dimensional
image with the use of a large format camera and meticulous attention to detail. In a
conceptual sense, Thomas Demand is a sculptor as much as he is a photographer.
Specific traces of the reproduced incident are systematically erased from the three-
dimensional, life-size reconstructions; and so too are the people present in the
original photographs. What remains are phantom images of ‘crime scenes’ of missing
events which often appear just as familiar to us as they are impalpable. Thomas
Demand's works will be accompanied by captions written for the exhibition by Botho
Strauß (b. 1944 in Naumburg). These texts are by no means intended to explain the
images, nor to limit their scope in any way, but rather to add further layers and, as a
result of their autonomy, new readings.
Thomas Demand’s works draw our attention to our reception of visual media and to
their influence on the structures of our memory. The exhibition Nationalgalerie gives
rise to questions about whether and to what extent a society’s appearance is
condensed and concentrated in individual key images as well as being retained in
people’s minds and remembered through such key images. Demand’s reconstructive
handling of images that carry significance or appear to carry significance, focuses on
the conscious or unconscious self-portrayal of a society and its changes. There could
hardly be a more fitting place for an exhibition which offers us a panorama of a
nation’s history than the great glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie of Mies van der
Rohe. The building is not only an incunabulum of post-war architecture, but also
equally historically significant as a symbol of the way the Federal Republic of
Germany viewed itself at the former inner-city border. The magnificent exhibition
design by the London-based architects Caruso St John, forms an ideal connection
between Demand’s works and the light hall of Mies van der Rohe.
Press contact
Dr. Katharina von Chlebowski
Theresa Lucius
T +49 30 26394880 F +49 30 263948811 presse@demandinberlin.org
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Generaldirektion
Stauffenbergstraße 41 10785 Berlin
Mechtild Kronenberg
Presse, Kommunikation, Sponsoring kommunikation@smb.spk-berlin.de
http://www.smb.museum
Anne Schäfer-Junker
Presse presse@smb.spk-berlin.de T +49 30 266 42 34 02 F +49 30 266 42 34 09
Press conference: Wednesday, 16 September 2009, beginning 11:00 a.m.
Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Straße 50 10785 Berlin
Opening Hours:
Tue – Wed 10 am – 6 pm,
Thur 10 am – 10 pm,
Fri – Sat 10 am - 8 pm,
Sun 10 am – 6 pm
Monday closed
Admission: Regular 8 Euro, Concession 4 Euro