Bangsted’s picture, ‘Rotary Disc (For Robert Cumming)’, took him two years to complete. He initially tried to figure out how to bring the idea to life, but failed at recreating the formal elements of the original disc featured in the 1978 booklet ‘Equilibrium and the Rotary Disc’ by American artist Robert Cumming.

The disc didn’t exist, so it had to be built, which is exactly what Bangsted did, inventing an actual rotary disc for the picture. He then photographed the wheel from the exact angles that would make the water spin in just the right way, and combined it with what eventually proved to be the perfect waterfall, found in the deep woods of Wisconsin. This picture thus captures the essence of Bangsted’s artistic practice, combining past and present with invention and fact.

Thomas Bangsted (b. 1976) is a Danish photographer based in New York. He holds a Fine Arts degree from The Glasgow School of Art and Goldsmiths College, and has a master’s degree from Yale University. Significant works include ‘Salvage’, ‘Court’, and ‘Panzerkreuzer’. In 2014 he had a solo exhibition at the contemporary art gallery MARC STRAUSS in New York.

Thomas Bangsted was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg in New York, October 2014.

Camera: Klaus Elmer
Produced and edited by: Kasper Bech Dyg
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015

Supported by Nordea-fonden