The
work of Thomas Demand often refers to consumer culture’s heavy dependence on,
and general distrust of, photographic imagery in today’s information-saturated
world. Galvanized by the outcome of the Florida ballot-counting scandal of the
2000 U.S. presidential election, Demand carefully observed news photographs of
the vote-counting office and items found therein, including a stack of unused
ballots. Using only paper and cardboard, he then constructed an imagined scene
from the counting office.

This pair of photographs, titled Pile (Staple), embodies Demand’s sense
of irony: his art is made of and about paper, and the scandal was also about
the same, thus offering a wry comment on the reliability of news images.