Thomas Demand’s photographs at Matthew Marks Gallery are a litmus test for how carefully we look at images, requiring viewers to take more than a quick glance. Despite the allure of their large size (this one measures over six feet across) many appear to represent relatively mundane scenes, at least until the feeling that something is ‘off’ leads to the realization that each artwork is a photo of a carefully constructed, life-sized paper and cardboard sculpture replicating an image from the media. Demand’s new work pictures an intercepted shipment of methamphetamines hidden amongst watermelons at the US/Mexico border and a closeup of a melting ice shelf that alludes to climate change. Here, an image recreating a memorial at the site of the 2022 racially motivated shooting at a Buffalo supermarket turns Demand’s time-consuming practice of meticulously replicating the various flowers, signs and candles into an additional act of homage to those lost. (On view in Chelsea through June 28th).
