Montréal, April 19, 2006. In a North American first, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal presents Tunnel, by German artist Thomas Demand. The film will be screened from May 10 to June 25, 2006, as part of the museum’s Projections film and video program. The public will have a chance to meet the artist when he is in Montréal on Wednesday, May 17.
Thomas Demand originally became known for his colour photographs of life-size reconstructions, in paper and cardboard, of interiors that are symbolically loaded but devoid of any human presence. His works exude an atmosphere of strangeness, which is heightened by the fact that he draws his inspiration from images culled from the media. Using these images to trigger a sense of déjà vu, the artist explores how they affect the collective unconscious. A sculptor by training, Demand displays an exceptional architectural sensibility in his works, both through his understanding of spaces and in his reading of meaning through forms.
Tunnel (35 mm, 2-min loop), Demand’s first film, was made in 1999. The viewer apparently follows the path of a car speeding through a tunnel. Here again, we are actually seeing a cardboard recreation, in this case of a two-lane tunnel divided by a row of columns and lit by narrow openings on the side walls. The artist explains this move from photography to film as follows: “The recent development of films (Escalator, Tunnel) takes my work from the plane to the fourth dimension, movement.” For beyond his exploration of a new medium, Demand tries to stimulate our active memory through the movement of film. The looped repetition of the sequence hints at a conception of time as a spiral and not a linear entity, as was analyzed by philosopher Gilles Deleuze: “Temporal, mobile repetition [as in Tunnel] tends to present time in a different, non-chronological, way, in a non-Euclidean space.”
Thomas Demand was born in Munich in 1964, between the post-war Germany and the Germany of the fall of the Berlin wall. He studied sculpture at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf and GoldsmithsCollege in London. He lives and works in Berlin. Tunnel has been presented at such prestigious institutions as the Tate Gallery in London and the Fondation Cartier in Paris. The Musée d’art contemporain is consequently proud to give this work its North American premiere and to welcome the artist on his first visit to Montréal. Louise Ismert, who is in charge of multimedia events at the Musée, coordinated the event.
Meet the artist
A meeting with the artist is scheduled for Wednesday, May 17, 2006, at 6:30 p.m., in the museum’s BWR Hall. The meeting will take place in English. Admission is free.
The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal is located at 185 Sainte-Catherine Street West, Place-des-Arts metro. Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Also open Monday, May 22, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Admission: Adults: $8; Seniors: $6; Students: $4; Families: $16. Free admission for children under 12 and members of the Fondation du Musée. Free admission for all on Wednesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. Information: (514) 847-6226. Website: www.macm.org.
This screening is organized by the Musée, in partnership with Bavaria in Québec, as part of the event Montréal-Munich 2006. The Musée was associated with the first edition of Bavaria in Québec in 2003, when it presented the exhibition M + M Johanna-Zyklus.
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