Thomas Demand Memorial, 2023

Memorial depicts a make-shift shrine with various bunches of flowers, candles and small placards, heaped together around a tree on a sidewalk. At first sight bright and colorful, the scene has a somber subtext. A reminder of the frequent gun violence in the United States for which such ad-hoc commemorations often quickly form, it draws on images from Buffalo in New York State—although the specific reference may be less relevant than the lamentable ubiquity of the imagery. The media's focus on these manifestations of the mourning community becomes a deflection from the shooting itself. Memorial, as do many of Demand's works, addresses the way images we see in the media become lodged in our memory and continue to influence us.