Introduction

Esther Schipper is pleased to present Model Studies, the fourth solo exhibition by Thomas Demand at the gallery. 

Model Studies is a new series of works that Demand developed during his residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. The extensive archive of the Institute includes the estate of the American architect John Lautner (1911–1994), whose architectural models provide the starting point for Demand‘s series. 

Model Studies comprises a total of 32 photographs from which a selection of individual images, as well as groups of two, three and of four, will be presented. Lautner‘s study models, which the architect used as visual aids, provide Demand with a representational basis, but can only be perceived in details of materials and shapes. Instead, the close-ups of cardboard, tar paper and foam-core panels open up photographic potential for abstraction with a nod to a modernist formal vocabulary, reflecting the link between Cubism and American art of the post-war period. At the same time, the series forms part of Demand‘s ongoing research into the construction of spaces and architecture, updating Lautner‘s visionary and often called fictional ideas.

In 2012 Model Studies was also shown at Nottingham Contemporary and at the International Pavilion of the Venice Biennale of Architecture, before being presented in January 2013 at the Graham Foundation in Chicago.