The artists in this installation share, with Thomas Demand, a very particular attitude towards models, which stems from their engagement with architecture. Models, according to Demand, are ways of understanding the environment without the distraction of a multitude of diverging stimulations. They are pieces of cultural technology.
Included in this exhibition are large-format photographs by Demand, showing details of models made by twentieth-century American architect John Lautner and his studio. The models themselves are modest working tools – a colored pencil is used to give indications of vegetation, and there are visible comments and traces of discarded alternatives. Their material components are equally cheap and fading – cardboard, aluminum, and found objects. Demand’s photographs, taken from a large series entitled Model Studies, revel in such traces of Lautner’s practice.
