Born in Munich in 1964, Thomas Demand began as a sculptor and took up photography to record his ephemeral paper constructions. In 1993 he began making constructions for the sole purpose of photographing them. He studied at the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf and then at Goldsmiths. Recent solo exhibitions include Thomas Demand, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the German Pavilion, 26th Sao Paulo Biennial and Phototrophy, Kunsthaus Bregenz.

Thomas Demand is currently exhibiting work at the Victoria Miro Gallery (till 02/07). For press release, click here (PDF).

Additional Info
Thomas Demand site
Guggenheim bio
Adrian Searle Guardian review (06/2005)
Icon article (06/2005)
Tate Etc. interview (04/2005)
Blindspot magazine conversation excerpt with Vik Muniz
Artforum review (04/2002)
Artforum essay (05/2001)
Kunsthaus Bregenz installation views
KultureFlash images

This interview was conducted in person at the Victoria Miro Gallery (22/06/05) and via email.

James Lindon: Walking around your current show at the Victoria Miro Gallery, I became acutely aware that your choice of subject material could be crassly broken down into categories, be they relatively elastic: scenes of crimes or locales of historical import as is the case in Kitchen (2004), which is based on a photograph of Saddam Hussein's hideout in Tikrit; or works which are apparently led by more formal concerns such as Lightbox (2003). Do you think about these categories when you are making work?

Thomas Demand: No not really, that would imply some sort of indexicality which I am not interested in. I mainly try to construct a picture which has a relationship with other images, both mine and other peoples'. This construction might involve images which you would associate with memories (short and long term), whilst others make clear references to artistic/conceptual concerns. Some works inevitably intertwine all of these possibilities. My subject matter is also lead by the relationship between all the images in a room or gallery. The bluntness of Lightbox, for example, is balanced out by the very specific narrative of Space Simulator (2003).

JL: Why do you not repeatedly make works from one category, say, exclusively based on scenes of historical/political interest?

TD: Images of this sort do concern me. But then, how do they do that? And what can I do with their impact? Do I have any other option than to consume images propagated by the mass media? Or can I take it upon myself to play with these images and hit the ball back into their court?

JL: Are you saying that you make no distinction between the types of images you choose to explore? Are they all culled from the soup of your memories, media-fed images and your imagination?

TD: No. I do make a distinction between the types and sources of images, but I wouldn't rule anything out. I don't see a hierarchy between more truthful and less important images. But as I look more closely at what's left in our memory of a well-circulated image I discover they all enter a stage of fictionality.

JL: Are your photographs then a reaction to a glut of media-generated images?

TD: No. That again would insinuate an evil conspiracy which has to be confronted. I am no Billy Graham, but I look for a way of re-privatisating that which is constructed as a public opinion.

JL: Your newest work Attempt (2005) seems to cleverly collide political and art histories. As far as I understand it, this work was constructed from photographs of the studio of an artist whom Baader-Meinhof terrorists targeted in the ‘70s in order to blow up the house of the state's prosecutor next door. How did you arrive at this photograph?

TD: I was thinking about Attempt in the context of the last room of my show in MoMA; I wanted to have one image which shows the cause not the effect of an incident. I also wanted to visually combine an inner and an outer space in addition to making an image which was so detailed and peculiar that it could actually take on the role of reportage.

JL: The installation of your film works has always been very particular. You have, for example, previously chosen to project your works onto Perspex, which seems to thicken the image, holding the colours and giving them body. Why have you previously chosen to exhibit films in this way?

TD: That was only done once, for Tunnel (1999) at the Tate Gallery. I think the architecture of a show is very important, especially if you work with film. In the case of the Art Now presentation at Tate, I wanted to avoid a curtain at the entrance, so we opted for a back projection. Film is also important to me not only because of its resolution but also because my film works are closely related to photography in terms of their visual language. In fact many of them (I have made five to date) are animations of still images. In this respect, the Tate installation was also supposed to link the film to my photographic work.

JL: What do your films achieve that your photographs don't?

TD: Firstly, I only make a film if it promises to show something a photograph can't. Secondly, I came to a point with my work at which I wanted to emphasise the sculptural element more without stepping back and showing an actual sculpture. So, in a way, I imagine the film works as a restaging of one's experience of moving through a site. I also hope that they "liquify" the static impression that my photos might have communicated over the years.

JL: How important is duration in both your films and your photographs?

TD: There are at least two "durations": one is recorded through the imagined stillness of the space pictured, whilst the other applies to the context you see the picture within. They are of course different and I try to consider both at the same time. Film might deal with the latter space better than a photograph, but that's just a bit of speculation...

JL: What strikes me most about your work is the extraordinary lengths you go to distance your viewer -- to keep them at bay. You seem to have perfected an armoury of devices to keep the viewer guessing. The issue of size and scale in Space Simulator for example, wherein your onlooker has no idea how big this baroque jumble of angled surfaces that amounts to your reconstitution of a ‘60s space flight simulator actually is.

TD: I am pretty sure that one can sense that the simulator is rather big. Even if you can't tell the exact measurements, the precision of the form as well as the resolution of detail is still overwhelming (in the literal sense of the word only). I don't know what enlargement would really mean in the context of my working process, so I tend to make my decision in proportion within the sculpture itself, not through the photograph.

JL: But the viewer's access to your chosen subject is always delayed and can only be gleaned from secondary textual materials. Parts of many of your photographs are even visually obscured, illegible, or don't automatically disclose their contents to our visual scrutiny, as in Fence or Barn. What effect do you think all of this uncertainty has on your viewer?

TD: I like the idea of mushrooms of doubt popping up everywhere; it might be the lack of detail, the combination of images, the fact that you remember having seen such a picture recently or simply the information you received before, during or after seeing the show. All these variables represent ways of communicating.

JL: Do you set out to unhinge or unnerve your viewer?

TD: "Unnerve" is a little exaggerated, don't you think? Looking at an image might just trigger your imagination or twist the way you look at things or think about the world around you.

JL: I'm not sure that describing your work as unnerving is an exaggeration. Freud developed an idea of nachtraglichkeit, which proposes that certain events -- in particular, childhood traumas -- take on their full meaning only afterwards, in analysis. The present, in this schema, is always and only incompletely experienced. Do you think that the jolt -- the doubletake -- that accompanies a viewer's immediate experience of your work is something which could repeat itself in the viewer's mind long after they have left the gallery? And to this end, do you think your work could, in fact, instruct a mild sensation of alienation?

TD: Again that's all speculation. I have no way of anticipating what the audience will think when they look at my work, but I am glad the work has given you something you can think about.

James Lindon is an independent curator and critic.

Image © Thomas Demand courtesy Victoria Miro Gallery