The real simulations of Thomas Demand: a sculptor by training and inclination, Thomas Demand uses photography to record his three-dimensional tableaux, which are based on found, often historically loaded, photos. The tableaux are then destroyed. His pictures were just shown at MOMA

Art in America, June-July, 2005 by Pepe Karmel

(5.) The full-scale model of Pollock's studio created for MOMA's Pollock retrospective of 1998 was also presented empty and lit by artificial light coming through the windows and chinks in the walls. It created the same chapel-like effect.

(6.) Demand's Space Simulator (2003), reproduced in the catalogue but not included in the exhibition, recalls the conspiracy theory that the American moon landing was an elaborate fake.

"Thomas Demand" was on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mar. 4-May 30. The exhibition included 25 photographs and one animated film. The accompanying catalogue contains reproductions of 41 photographs by Demand and stills from five of his films, an essay by Roxana Marcoci and a short story by Jeffrey Eugenides, the author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex, and Demand's ertswhile neighbor in Berlin.

Pepe Karmel is an associate professor at New York University who has written widely on Picasso, Pollock, Minimalism and contemporary art.