Introduction
Thomas Demand has spent the last two and a half decades bringing together his talents as both a sculptor and a photographer in an attempt to capture the uncanny stutter of history that lies at the root of our contemporary image culture. Demand’s images may appear to depict the real world but upon closer inspection they resonate with a fragile similitude that belies the fact that they are actually photographs of his handmade three-dimensional sculptural recreations of found images culled from the media.
After choosing his source images, Demand uses colored paper and cardboard to painstakingly reconstruct the spaces that they depict in three dimensions at a one to one scale. He then photographs these scenarios and subsequently destroys his models leaving behind only the ghostly photographic doppelgänger.
The Stutter of History will tour to Israel Museum, Jerusalem, August 1, 2023 – January 1 2024; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 16 – September 5, 2024; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, November 30 2024 – March 9, 2025. The tour began at UCCA Edge, Shanghai in 2022.
Concurrently, Esther Schipper presents Thomas Demand, memo, a solo presentation at our Paris gallery, February 18 – April 1, 2023, and at the Fondation Alaia.
Concurrent exhibitions by Demand in Paris include Thomas Demand: The Stutter of History at the Jeu de Paume and Forms And Patterns of Azzedine Alaïa by Thomas Demand at the Fondation Alaïa with works drawing on the archives of the late fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa.
Thomas Demand
The Stutter of History
Jeu de Paume
1 Place de la Concorde
Jardin des Tuileries
75001 Paris
February 14 – May 28, 2023