On August 25, 1977, youth terrorist group members of the Baader–Meinhof Gang forcefully occupied an apartment in Karlsruhe, Germany, in order to execute a bombing. The table-mounted rocket launcher—known as a “Stalin Organ”—features racks of bombs raised to a launch position at a window. Aimed at the neighboring offices of the Federal Prosecutor, who had imprisoned members of the group, the device ultimately did not go off as planned. Its builder—Peter-Jürgen Boock—pleaded a change of heart, which was completely disregarded by the court.

To create his art, Thomas Demand has developed a unique process that combines elements of sculpture, architecture, and photography. He mines well-known media images and crime-scene photos of suspect sites from social and political history and current events. The artist then recreates the depicted architectural spaces from paper and cardboard, usually to life scale, for the sole purpose of creating his large photographs. Once photographed, he destroys the model. Deliberately devoid of people and revealing the imperfections of his constructions, his work questions the idea of “truth” in photography and asks the viewer to reconsider the physical spaces of historical events in a world of media image bombardment.