Thomas Demand Schilf, 2025
UV print on copper
85 x 64 cm
Thomas Demand's Schilf uses a new technique of UV print on a copper plate. The motif does not seem to have any apparent narrative content: tufts of reeds rising from the water are a familiar sight. Yet, the image can be read as water or sky, as plants or their reflection. In a self-referential gesture, then, the work alludes to Demand’s general practice of creating works at the threshold of two-dimensional image and three-dimensional object, but also to his monumental Pond, 2020, a work in reference to Claude Monet’s gardens of waterlilies at Giverny.
There is a shift in Demand's practice, turning away from C-prints, and experimenting with new printing methods such as printing onto copper. As he explains in his 2025 artforum portfolio, "In the sixteenth century, artists turned to painting on copper because wood would warp and canvases on stretchers weren’t widely used yet. Copperplate engraving was one of the first techniques used to mechanically reproduce images. The first photographs were also printed on copper. As an original element (no. 29, Cu), it is a rather auratic material, in my eyes."
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
The copper plate is primed with a thin gesso base, onto which the UV-print is made. It is then sealed by a protective varnish.
There is a shift in Demand's practice, turning away from C-prints, and experimenting with new printing methods such as printing onto copper. As he explains in his 2025 artforum portfolio, "In the sixteenth century, artists turned to painting on copper because wood would warp and canvases on stretchers weren’t widely used yet. Copperplate engraving was one of the first techniques used to mechanically reproduce images. The first photographs were also printed on copper. As an original element (no. 29, Cu), it is a rather auratic material, in my eyes."
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
The copper plate is primed with a thin gesso base, onto which the UV-print is made. It is then sealed by a protective varnish.