Thomas Demand is a sculptor, turned photographer. He takes a preexisting image from the media, usually of a political event, translates the image into a life-size model made of colored paper and cardboard, and photographs it.

Here's the fun part, if you look very closely, you'll see a stray pencil mark here, an open seam there. These imperfections, along with the lack of minor details and not a hint of human presence, signals that these are staged scenes. The image is not real...was the photograph that it was based on?

Archive (1995) shows a film archive, with over two hundred cardboard boxes, of a German propagandist in Nazi Germany.

Studio (1997) depicts the set of the first German quiz show

Kitchen (2004) is based on an image of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hideaway in Tikrit

and Poll (2001, and my favorite) tries to relive the havoc of the Palm Beach County voting mess. Once again...the image is false, is the Reuters image it is based on (and the democratic process itself) real or imaginary?

Needless to say...I recommend the show. At MOMA, now til May 30th.