Introduction

For the 25th Kaldor Public Art Project, Thomas Demand presented a new series of images, The Dailies, within the unique environment of the Commercial Travellers‘ Association (CTA) club, part of the MLC Centre designed by celebrated Australian architect Harry Seidler in the mid 1970s. Demand, known for his full-scale recreations of environments made entirely from paper and card that he photographs and later destroys, so that they remain only as images, occupies an entire hotel floor on the CTA building‘s level 4. His installation, displayed throughout the bedrooms that extend out from a circular corridor, has a disorientating effect.

In recent years Demand has begun to move beyond traditional exhibition models for his work by transforming the gallery spaces, with carefully designed wallpaper for his exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London (2006), or with a complex installation of curtains as a background for his works at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2009–10). His new Kaldor Public Art Project extends out to a totally new environment, exploring an extraordinary architectural setting for his works, a first for the artist and a unique experience for Sydney.

The series of works that Demand will present for this project, The Dailies, capture everyday moments and objects, their title referring to the daily rushes from film, the leftover images from the cutting room floor. Demand likens them to Japanese Haiku poetry, simple fragments strung together to inspire reflection. Appearing like simple, instantaneous moments, The Dailies series are crafted with the utmost care and are printed using the labour-intensive dye-transfer technique that only a handful of specialists in the world can achieve. Dye-transfer printing is one of the oldest colour photographic processes, peerless for its richness, depth and fidelity. Demand has used some of the last remaining papers and materials of their kind to print his works via this rare technique, a method that will be soon unavailable for future generations of artists.

The installation The Dailies also included collaborations with Miuccia Prada who has created a scent for the hotel rooms and US author Louis Begley (novels include: Wartime Lies, The Man Who Was Late and About Schmidt) who has developed a short story.