Thomas Demand

Thomas Demand is a German Photographer, who is known for his cardboard and paper models of docile areas, which include things like empty office buildings which have printers and computers like a regular office building, and other strange environments including unique settings. He was born in 1964 Germany and Throughout his education became interested in the practice of sculpture, where he found inspirational images through photographers like Hilla Becher, who’s work involved portraits of specific structures, and even sculptures like Richard Tuttle. As Demand developed his sculptures he consistently started using just paper, and found an interesting concept of environments which are common to what we use as people in society, like the inside of office buildings, and photographing them in a way which present an emptiness of people but a recognition of the environment. The meaning behind his sculptures are mostly political, and show an environment of political and historical instances. What’s interesting about his practice is that after he’s completed a sculpture and photographed it, but then destroying it, showing a disconnection between holding onto things, and represents value in its own way, but also creates a more valued image after he has photographed the environment.

In an interview with Will Wiles, the interviewer describes Demands work as, “his banal and ordinary environments often have sinister connections and meanings”, implying the mystery behind just the visual aspects of his work and how contextually it creates an off putting sensation, as if there is something slightly wrong or familiar but you don’t know exactly what. Demand goes on to say, “It triggers your picture library to spill something out,” which means that his work without knowing the context or meaning is supposed to present almost a sense of nostalgia/familiarity which creates a similar memory or thought to present itself.

What I personally like about Demands work is the concepts behind his work, and how he does sculpture environments just for fun, but rather with a meaning behind it (mostly political and emotional). For example this image above is called the “Corridor (1996)”, and is a representation of Jeffery Dahmer’s apartments. What’s specifically interesting about his design of his sculptures is that whilst it looks like a simple design it crates a sense of fear and eeriness, and is photographed at an angle which conveys the emotion that Demand wants to express in his sculptures and photographs. Furthermore, I like how Demand creates these sculptures just to photograph, and not for it to be a long living sculpture as he destroys it, which I personally think makes the image more distorted and uncanny. His use of depth, lines, and lighting all works together to create the representation of his images meaning.

Thomas Demands work can be related to the concept of “liminal space” because of the sculptures being visually transitional, as if you are the POV of the image walking through a hallway. But also how his work conveys the same sensations as Liminal space photography, which is through disconnection, and disorientation from first sight. I will respond to his work with attempting to create my own type of images that present this aesthetic of messy and empty areas which feel eerie, I will captures environments like docile office buildings and empty hotel hall ways which use the consistency of repetition in shapes and depth, as if it never ends, or there is an entrance to the unknown at the end of the hallway.