Thomas Demand Backyard, 2014

Backyard depicts the courtyard of the building in which the Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's lived with his wife and child. While the widely circulated source images that appeared in the press coverage surrounding the bombing (for example in the May 2013 issue of the New York Times) included Tsarnaev's wife leaving the structure through the exit seen in Backyard, Thomas Demand has removed the figure from his depiction. Apart from the concrete staircase leading up to the side entrance of the building, miscellaneous objects strewn in the yard can be made out: a blue tarp, a green plastic lid, a plank, the frame of a small table. In the background, a cherry tree in full bloom contrasts with the somewhat dilapidated yard, and its bright pink blossoms become the central focus of the composition.