RESEARCH (Thomas Demand)

 Thomas Demand is a German sculptor and photographer. He is known for making photographs of three-dimensional models that look like real images of rooms and other spaces often sites loaded with social and political meanings. He thus describes himself not as a photographer, but as a conceptual artist for whom photography is an intrinsic part of his creative process. Demand has also experimented with film in works such as Tunnel (1999), a tracking shot from a driver’s perspective through an empty tunnel lined by concrete pillars. The tunnel is modelled on the Paris underpass where Princess Diana died.

Demand had one project named Model Studies, which was his first time when he photographed architectural models that weren't his own. "The series comprises a total of 32 close-ups of cardboard, tar paper, and foam core panels, depicting the study models from many angles."(Wikipedia)

In 1993, he began to use photography to record his elaborate, life-sized paper-and-cardboard constructions of actually or formerly existing environments and interior spaces, and soon started to create constructions for the sole purpose of photographing them. The photograph he takes of this model with a large-format-camera is the final stage of his work, and it is only this image, most often executed in an edition, of six that is exhibited unframed behind Plexiglas, not the models. On the contrary, Demand destroys his “life-size environments” after he has photographed them. One notable exception is his large scale model for Grotto (2006), inspired by a postcard of a Mallorcan grotto Demand has never visited, which was later exhibited. The life sized models are highly detailed, yet they retain subtle but deliberate flaws and anachronisms, such as an unnaturally uniform texture; according to art critic Michael Kimmelman, "the reconstructions were meant to be close to, but never perfectly, realistic so that the gap between truth and fiction would always subtly show".

I was inspired by him and wanted to make photos too, but then I realized that I used to make photos when I was working with last project, so I can't do that now. And also I was very inspired by that woman, who made photos like they are from film, but they weren't. I think this is very cool and impressive!