Taka Ishii Gallery Tokyo, located in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, Tokyo, relocated to Kitasando in late May. The new gallery space's opening exhibition, "Model Studies (Koto-ku)," is currently running until June 27th. The new gallery is located about a three-minute walk from Kitasando Station. The two separate spaces house Tomio Koyama Gallery, which previously occupied the same building in Kiyosumi Shirakawa. Thomas Demand uses documentary photographs and video footage of historical and social events sourced from major media to recreate life-size models using colored paper and cardboard. By re-photographing the completed models, he has created large-format photographs and videos that appear to depict actual crime scenes. In 2011, Thomas Demand also exhibited "Model Studies," his first photographed model of a human being other than himself. This work, inspired by his encounter with architectural models by American architect John Lautner, marked the artist's first time photographing a human figure. In 2013, Thomas Demand began visiting the office of the Japanese architectural firm SANAA in Tokyo's Koto Ward. He photographed the SANAA models scattered around the office, treating them as living seeds of ideas that could sprout and grow into trees, unsure of when and where they might sprout. This exhibition features approximately eight of Demand's latest photographs from his "Model Studies" series. He views architectural models as sculptures that embody ideas, focusing on the fleeting beauty of ideas that emerge and are discarded, exploring the rich possibilities inherent in models. A book featuring an essay by Thomas Demand, "Model Studies: Koto-ku" (8,000 yen), has also been published to coincide with this exhibition. Furthermore, his latest collection of works, "Blossom," published by the British publisher MACK, will be available for pre-sale in Japan at Daikanyama T-Site to coincide with the exhibition. The paper "Blossom" is inspired by a photograph of Catherine Russell, wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing that occurred in April of that year, which was published in the New York Times on May 4, 2013. Demand's work is photographed and destroyed, drawing the viewer into a virtual reality that is different from the reality before their eyes, and the addition of text by American novelist and poet Ben Lerner offers a new interpretation.

[Event Information]
"Model Studies (Koto-ku)"
Venue: Taka Ishii Gallery Tokyo
Address: B1, 3-10-11 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Dates: Until June 27th