PROJECT 38
THOMAS
DEMAND
Project Summary
For the 38th Kaldor Public Art Project, German artist Thomas Demand will create an extraordinary exhibition space in the new Naala Badu building of the Art Gallery New South Wales, specifically designed to display the John Kaldor Family Collection in a whole new light.
Demand, who is well known for his photographs, has become deeply interested in architecture and exhibition design. For this project, he turns his attention to the artworks in the Kaldor Collection and to the Art Gallery building, designed by Japanese architecture firm SANAA. Demand is familiar with SANAA’s practice, having made a series of research visits to their Tokyo studio. This project has been closely informed by his research.
Demand has developed a remarkable spatial design and exhibition layout which transforms Naala Badu’s expansive contemporary collection gallery into a labyrinth of floating, coloured planes and pavilions, offering a surprising new experience of the gallery space and the art it contains.
The project features renowned artists from the Kaldor Collection of over 200 works, including Francis Alÿs, Christo, Gilbert and George, Andreas Gursky, Sol LeWitt, Robert Rauschenberg, Ugo Rondinone and Saskia Olde Wolbers.
Thomas Demand presented the 25th Kaldor Public Art Project in 2012 at the Commercial Travellers’ Association in Sydney’s Martin Place.
Thomas Demand
born 1964 in Munich, Germany
Thomas Demand: The Object Lesson
30 August 2025 – 11 January 2026
Naala Badu, Lower level 1
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
THOMAS DEMAND
Born in 1964 in Munich, Thomas Demand is a German artist known for his large-scale photographs, depicting motives from mass-media images or from his personal archive reconstructed in life size from paper and cardboard. Through his work, he strives to overturn the notion of photography as an inevitably objective or truthful medium, exploring the gap between reality and its representation.
Demand grew up in Munich and, from 1987 to 1992, attended both the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Düsseldorf Art Academy before receiving a master's degree in fine arts from Goldsmiths' College in 1994 in London. He initially focused on sculpture, using photography to document his paper and cardboard reconstructions. In 1990, however, photography and sculpture traded places in his artistic process; the photograph became the artwork.
He lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles.
PROJECT SUPPORTERS
Collaborating Partner
Kaldor Public Art Projects would like to thank the Art Gallery of New South Wales for presenting Project 38, our twelfth project together since 1973. We greatly value their collaboration and thank all those who made this project possible.
Lead Patron
Kaldor Public Art Projects is thankful for the longstanding support and encouragement of our founding donor The Balnaves Foundation, with whose support we have realised 22 projects. The Balnaves Foundation aims to create a better Australia through education, medicine and the arts with a focus on young people, the disadvantaged and Indigenous Australia.
Philanthropic Partner
Kaldor Public Art Projects is grateful to Bloomberg Philanthropies for its support of Project 38, our twelfth project together. Bloomberg Philanthropies is committed to supporting cultural institutions and empowering artists across the physical and digital worlds and we are proud to be included.
Government Partners
Our NSW Government partner, Create NSW, continues to provide invaluable support and assistance, making it possible for us to present Project 38 in collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
We thank Creative Australia for the support they have given Project 38.
Cultural Partner
Kaldor Public Art Projects thanks long-time friend the Goethe-Institut for supporting our public program.