Thomas Demand

The Völklingen Ironworks flooded in red light
Copyright: Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze

Thomas Demand

Thomas Demand
Copyright: Brigitte Lacombe

Born in Munich, Germany, in 1964
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Los Angeles, USA

Works

Fotoecke/Photobooth

Demnad Fotoecke

Demnad Fotoecke
Copyright: TThomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; Courtesy Sprüth Magers

Thomas Demand's 2009 work Photoecke/Photobooth shows a photograph of his detailed paper replica of the photo room at the Stasi remand prison in Gera, whose condition he took from photos in a Spiegel report. Former inmates report regular and lengthy photo sessions, some of which were accompanied by an ominous humming noise. In 1989, a hidden X-ray machine was discovered there, aimed at the head height of those being photographed. When several former dissidents died of cancer, suspicions grew that they may have been exposed to X-ray cannons in Stasi prisons. With his work, Demand depicts the scene of the unsolved suspicious events, just as he shows the bathtub from Uwe Barschel's Geneva hotel room without the suicide victim.

Web presence

www.thomasdemand.info