Thomas Demand: model studies I & II

Abstract

With Modellstudien, the Insel Hombroich Foundation presents its first solo show of works by a contemporary artist. At the Siza Pavilion at the Raketenstation Hombroich, Thomas Demand is showing a selection from his new Model Studies series. -In his large-scale close-up photographs of models made by the influential Japanese architects SANAA and the American architect John Lautner, Demand guides our vision to the details. The material characteristics, the state and the way the models have been made are the defining features of the artist’s nigh-abstract compositions. Inscriptions, marks of wear and tear and the impression of sculptural depth evoked by the incident light are occasional reminders that these are images of architectural models. - Thomas Demand’s Modellstudien are devoted to the model made of paper and cardboard as a form of gaining and communicating knowledge. To that extent, he remains true to his established artistic procedure. This consists in putting characteristic media-shaped and propagated societal scenes centre-stage as photographs of cardboard replicas. But here he varies upon a practice where both the physical qualities of the locations copied and the photographic composition are secondary to the significance of the familiar images; in the Modellstudien, the material and the composition have become defining features. - Exhibition: Museum Insel Hombroich, Neuss, Germany (05.10-06.12.2015).