Thomas Demand. 3. Refuge II, 2021, C-Print / Diasec, 160 x 200 cm
TEXT Peter Sealy
PHOTO Thomas Demand
A blue blanket, white sheet, and two wrinkled pillows cover a bed in the corner of a room lit by a single, wall-mounted light. An electrical socket provides relief on the room?s mauve-coloured walls. A fundamental banality resounds from the image: this could be anywhere and that is the point.
As with many works by the German artist Thomas Demand, Refuge II (2021) hovers between seemingly opposite registers. It depicts an anonymous yet infamous space. It was in this room that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is believed to have lived for over a month at Moscow?s Sheremetyevo Airport following his flight from the United States in 2013. Printed in large format, this photograph in fact depicts a model constructed in Demand?s studio, based on a press photograph. From afar, the model photograph is indistinguishable from its source. But as the viewer comes closer, the model?s materiality becomes present. The pillowcases? creases are revealed to be crinkles in white paper.
Far from disappointment at any deception, or joy at uncovering an image?s origins, the viewer is instead greeted with a pleasant moment of suspension, in which the image hovers between a depicted reality and its materialized representation. While the historian Jesus Vassallo has celebrated a trend in recent architectural photography towards ?seamless? images which merge architectural projects and their banal set...