Thomas Demand’s touring exhibition comes to Taipei

Thomas Demand’s touring exhibition comes to Taipei

2025-03-05

A worldwide tour to exhibit the works of German conceptual artist Thomas Demand is now in Taipei. Nearly 70 large-scale photographic works, wallpaper installations, and moving image pieces aim to challenge viewers to reflect on the nature of visual imagery. FTV reporter Stephany Yang takes us in for a look!

This is a photo from a press conference held by US President Donald Trump in 2017. Or, is it? German artist Thomas Demand recreated the scene from paper before he captured it on camera.

Sung Yu-mei
TFAM media associate
He went to recreate the scene of the press conference held by Donald Trump before he took office in 2017. At this press conference, he placed a lot of folders to prove that he had handed over the management of his company, that there would be no business interests involved when he then took office in the future. But the interesting thing is that when reporters wanted to go up and read these documents, he didn’t allow them to do so. Although these papers were a type of evidence, however, they may also be just props and there may be nothing in them.

Another work by Demand was created using 270,000 paper leaves to create a forest.

Sung Yu-mei
TFAM media associate
He was curious about the difference between the man-made and the natural world. He used 270,000 paper leaves, paper cut into the shape of leaves, to make this work. For him, the lighting was also very important. He tried a lot of lighting from different directions, and finally adjusted it to one that he felt was very consistent with the feeling of the dreamy forest that everyone imagined.

This work was created using 36 tons of postcards to construct a life-size cave. Many of Demand’s works draws inspiration from footage and images of scenery or important social and historical events. He recreates these scenes using paper and then takes photos of these reconstructions.

Sung Yu-mei
TFAM media associate
He will use images of historical or social events as his subject matter. He will use paper to build the scene true-to-scale. After the construction is completed, he will use lights to make the scene look like the original image. He wants to challenge whether images are objective and legitimate media. What is the gap between images and reality? The last exhibition Demand took part in Taipei was at the Taipei Biennale in 2002, which marked the 10th of his creative career. This time, after more than 20 years, he presented a 30-year retrospective, which contains nearly 70 of his works, from which we can see his unique creative method of integrating sculpture and photography.

The paper models are destroyed after Demand gets the shot he wants. The object thus fades but the image remains. The exhibition will be held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum until May 11.

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