PROJECT 38
THOMAS
DEMAND
Project Summary
For the 38th Kaldor Public Art Project, German artist Thomas Demand has created an extraordinary exhibition space in the new Naala Badu building of the Art Gallery of 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 gallery into a dynamic 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, Aleks Danko, Gilbert and George, Andreas Gursky, Sol LeWitt, Nam June Paik, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Ugo Rondinone, Saskia Olde Wolbers, and many more.
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
MUSIC PROGRAM: JULES REIDY
Berlin-based musician and composer Jules Reidy has created a musical accompaniment to the 38th Kaldor Public Art Project, Thomas Demand: The Object Lesson. The 30-minute work, Collage June 25, is an assemblage of musical forms derived from processed guitars and field recordings. It has been inspired by the planes, colours and volumes of German artist Thomas Demand’s extraordinary design for the Kaldor Project exhibition in the Naala Badu building, as well as by the artworks on display.
Hear this new piece of music and its variations on harmonic progression, Euclidean rhythmic passages and time-stretched materials in a series of live performances throughout the duration of the exhibition. Local musicians and sound artists Megan Alice Clune, Alexandra Spence and Mary Rapp will reinterpret Reidy’s score for their performances, and Reidy will travel to Sydney to play their original composition live in January 2026.
These are not sit-down concerts, but chance sonic events encountered in the exhibition space—a soundtracked experience bridging music and art.
MEGAN ALICE CLUNE
Megan Alice Clune is a musician, artist and composer living in Sydney who explores the dynamic relationships between music, technology, the body and temporality through composition, performance and installation. Her work balance sonic textures that are at once rich and sparse.
Performance:
Wednesday 3 September, 7pm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Naala Badu building
Lower level 1
Free, no bookings required
ALEXANDRA SPENCE
Alexandra Spence is a Sydney-based sound artist and musician interested in the communion or conversation that occurs between listener, object and surrounding environment. Her performances feature field recordings, analogue technologies and object interventions.
Performance:
Wednesday 1 October, 7pm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Naala Badu building
Lower level 1
Free, no bookings required
MARY RAPP
Mary Rapp is a multidisciplinary musician based in Sydney who has gained wide acclaim for her distinctive approach, which integrates jazz, experimental, classical and regional music traditions.
Performance:
Wednesday 5 November, 7pm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Naala Badu building
Lower level 1
Free, no bookings required
JULES REIDY
Jules Reidy, originally from Australia, is a musician and composer living in Berlin. They use materials such as guitars, voice, percussion and found sounds, deconstructing and augmenting them through non-standard tuning systems, polyrhythmic structures, electronic processing and spatialisation.
Performances:
Wednesday 7 January 2026, 3pm, 7pm
Saturday 10 January 2026, 2pm
Sunday 11 January 2026, 2pm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Naala Badu building
Lower level 1
Free, no bookings required
LEARNING PROGRAM: NADIA ODLUM
Artist Nadia Odlum presents a new program of participatory “loose parts” play workshop for children and families, inspired by the exhibition Thomas Demand: The Object Lesson at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
In this series of creative workshops, titled 'Lessons Loosened', you are invited to collaborate and play with an exciting array of unconventional objects, assembled by Odlum in response to artworks from the John Kaldor Family Collection. Each workshop includes an artist-led tour of the exhibition, and a session of free "loose parts" play, with the chance to reflect and create your own "play stories".
Nadia Odlum is a Sydney-based artist and researcher, with a strong background in museum education and a practice that explores modes of participatory engagement. This program draws upon Odlum's recent research into the intersection of art and play, and the contemporary play-based approaches of Playwork and Anji Play.
Workshop dates:
Monday 29 September, 10.30am and 2pm
Tuesday 30 September, 10.30am and 2pm
Wednesday 1 October, 10.30am
Thursday 2 October, 10.30am
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Naala Badu building
Meers Hall, Lower level 2
Please meet in the entrance pavilion
Workshop duration: 2 hours
Recommended age: 5+ years
Free, bookings required
BLOOMBERG CONNECTS: DIGITAL GUIDE
Explore our free digital guide for Thomas Demand: The Object Lesson on Bloomberg Connects to enhance your visit. The guide features audio commentary, artwork images, and public programs—with exclusive insights from the curators and Kaldor Public Art Projects founder John Kaldor.
Bring your headphones to use the audio content and immerse yourself in the exhibition.
You can download the Bloomberg Connects app on your phone's app store and Google Play.
RELATED EVENTS
Discover the 38th Kaldor Public Art Project, Thomas Demand: The Object Lesson, through a wide-ranging series of public programs and events, featuring talks, live musical performances, children's holiday workshops, tailored Access programs and more.
Hear from German artist Thomas Demand, director and chief curator at the Public Art Fund, New York, Nicholas Baume, Art Gallery director Maud Page and John Kaldor, along with some of Sydney's leading curators, artists, historians and thinkers, as they share their unique perspectives on the John Kaldor Family Collection.
All programs are presented at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, free of charge. Bookings are required for some events.
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.
Individual Donors
Geoff Ainsworth AM and Johanna Featherstone
Anonymous
Andrew Cameron AM and Cathy Cameron
Simon Mordant AO and Catriona Mordant AM
Mark and Louise Nelson
Justine and Damian Roche
Penelope Seidler AM
Michael Snelling