Tom Sachs takes visitors on a fun and fascinating journey on the Upper East Side (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
TOM SACHS: SPACESHIPS
Acquavella Galleries
18 East Seventy-Ninth St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Monday – Friday through November 26, free, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
www.acquavellagalleries.com
www.tomsachs.com
online slideshow
New York City native Tom Sachs continues his fascination with the final frontier with “Spaceships,” on view at Acquavella Galleries on the Upper East Side through November 26. Ten years ago, Sachs transformed Park Ave. Armory into the Red Planet for the immersive, interactive exhibition “Space Program: Mars.” He’s also hosted “Tea Ceremony” at the Noguchi Museum (with yet more NASA-style objects), activated his “Training” game at the FLAG Foundation, and blasted music for his “Boombox Retrospective, 1999–2016” at the Brooklyn Museum.
“Spaceships” consists of two rooms of miniature sculptures, drawings, paintings, and engineering plans relating to travel, from the tiny Mothership, Hercules, and Titanic to a Charging Station with an American flag on top, a Photon Drive, a Litter Robot (ask someone at the front desk if they can turn it on for you), a Docking station, and Generation Ship, a lunar module with a surprise video inside. Sachs also populates this outer-space journey with some of his trademark figures, including a Barbie doll, a Technics turntable, and a Chanel vacuum cleaner, that also reference his attraction to consumerism and analog technology. Be sure to look at everything closely to see what kinds of materials he has repurposed brilliantly. “There’s information from the materials’ past life — I’m not going to always be there to stand and tell it, but if I’m successful, the viewer will feel that story, whether that’s a mop bucket or a Chanel suit,” he says about his work.
Tom Sachs exhibit features different kinds of ships (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
He adds, “There are three reasons people do anything — spirituality, sensuality, and stuff. Spirituality is asking the big questions: Are we alone? Where do we come from? Sensuality is going where no man has gone before: exploring space, the g-force of excitement, climbing the highest mountain, the smell of the tatami, the touch of the kimono . . . Stuff is the hardware: a spaceship, a cathedral, a tea bowl. That’s what we make. Our priority is sculpture, but it doesn’t mean shit without the ritual and without the spirituality and the reasons behind it. You’ve gotta have all three.” And once again, he does.