“Existing in a state of continual motion, from the hotel room to the road, the life of the travelling salesman, the commercial traveller, is experienced as a perpetual passenger, punctuated by both the shifting of place and the marking of time.”
In the mid 1970s, architect Harry Seidler designed a space for the historic Commercial Travellers’ Association in Sydney, Australia. In collaboration with Pier Luigi Nervi, he created a circular building that sprouts up from the street like a radiating flower.
For the 25th Kaldor Public Art Project, Thomas Demand’s series The Dailies occupies an entire floor of Seidler’s structure. The floor of sixteen bedrooms, which house The Dailies , extend off a circular corridor creating a labyrinthine effect. Demand’s images sit above the beds in each room, the transient scenes capturing everyday moments and objects, suspended in time like the environment around them.
Working within the parameters of his now well-known technique, Demand created carefully formed paper and card sculptures, photographed and then destroyed them. His creations are based on things he saw and photographs he took while travelling and walking the street. Demand describes the series as like Haiku poetry, simple fragments strung together to inspire reflection.
The Dailies includes contributions by designer Miuccia Prada and US author Louis Begley.
The book, a work of art in itself, expands to a 16-pointed star, its concertina pages unfurling to echo the shape of the CTA building.
To see a recent Wallpaper magazine article, click here.
Thomas Demand, The Dailies
64 pages
16 colour plates
37 cm x 34 cm
Large format leporello bound book with magnetic closing system in faux leather
Hardback embossed
Co-published with Kaldor Art Projects
Design by Naomi Mizusaki
Publication date: April 2012
€150.00 / £125.00 / $195.00
ISBN 978-1-907946-19-6
