Last night I was at the Nottingham Contemporary again. This time it was an evening with the currently showing artist Thomas Demand. He was in conversation with Milan-based architect, researcher and editor in chief of Domus magazine, Joseph Grima.

The event was packed – it was over-subscribed. I guess there were over 100 people there. There was also a simultaneous live web-cast – which was recorded and remains on the web site here.
Domus is well respected in Architectural circles having been around since 1928. It has covered the work of John Lautner – and architect who was the inspiration for Demand’s latest exhibition. Lautner was an Architect who divided opinion – but who’s work has been widely critiqued. He was apparently a poor draftsman – and relied heavily on his models – which others then drew from. It was eight models held at the Getty Museum in LA which provided the material for Demand’s images.
Demand explained his interest in the models. These were ‘real’ three dimensional forms which were used to demonstrate the buildings, in a way which CAD or CGI’s can’t do. We have become used to the latter in our everyday lives – they permeate our world of film and game, as well as architecture.
He also touched on the work of Frank Ghery – Ghery is probably my favourite Architect and I thought his work at the Sci-Fi Museum and Experience Music Project in Seattle is just genius. Ghery works with paper and card to produce his whimsical models – which then form the basis of the actual building.
I thought the talk was a fascinating insight into how an artist works. He sees photographs as ‘indexical’, in other words a representation of what is in front of the camera. But they can, by using abstract composition provide a different perspective and become less of a record. It is interesting that his time at Getty was limited and there are rules which prevented him from taking photographs with flash, or by using a tripod. He took between 600-700 photographs for the handful you now see.
I liked in particular one of his phrases – “If I don’t love what I do, who else will love it”. It seemed to me that this was a similar perspective of Steve Jobs at Apple.
The Contemporary does this sort of thing well – a great venue and a unique opportunity to see and hear an artist who is regarded as being at the top of his game. Well done Nottingham Contemporary…
52.941294
-1.166237