Sculptures about to Land on the Moon Join a Long History of Lunar Art

Cuans are about to land on the moon’s surface to a long history of lunar art

Written by Megan Parts Edited by Gina Brenner

If things go smoothly, the population of the robotic moon will increase by one on February 22, with the NASA -funded Lander Odysse’s scheduled landing from NASA, nicknamed ODEE. Among the 125 miniature sculptures of the moon described by their Creator, artist Jeff Konz, as “the first artistic work based on the moon.”

It was launched on February 15th, Odie was built by ISISTUITIVE MACHINES, based in Houston. It carries six NASA tools, as well as a group of commercial loads, including Koons moons. Each -inch moon contains the surface of the moon on two counterparts that will remain on Earth: a larger statue and a digital version in the form of a non -violation symbol, or NFT.

The “accredited” is an important word for sculpting bills as the “first” on the moon. Even if the intuitive machines continue to decline smoothly, Koons sculptures may not be the first art to hold our closest companion in space – although it was amazingly slippery.

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The main rival of the first art on the moon landed in 1969 on the unit of the moon on the Apollo 12 mission. Andy Warhol and Robert Roshenberg. Although the coalition asked NASA to agree to the endeavor, he did not receive a response.

“At that time, the concept of art put on the moon was a vanguard idea for the NASA official,” says Caroline Rousseau, the art coordinator at the Air and National Space Museum in Washington, DC. They could not. “

Thus they went to the rogue. NASA’s engineer infiltrated the tiles on the leg of the lunar unit, below the wonderful golden layers of insulation, before the task explodes. There is no picture of the Moon Museum in place; The only way to ensure that the tiles that made it is to visit Lander on the moon. (There are also copies that remain on the ground, including a copy of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.)

The artist Forest Mairez, who led the endeavor, said, said, New York Times In an article published on November 22, 1969, when the project was announced.

Rousseau argues that the Moon Museum, assuming that it has reached its destination, is the only real art on the moon. She says that in her opinion, to qualify, projects must intentionally fly as an art for the purpose of art. From her point of view, this would exclude another element from the Apollo era, a small aluminum statue that became called “the pioneer of the fallen space.”

This statue was designed by the artist Paul Van Huydung and placed on the surface of the moon by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott in 1971, accompanied by the painting of American astronauts and Soviet astronauts who died in seeking to reach space. Scott said it The statue is a tribute to colleagues, although Van Huwaidk said since then He approached the piece as a shroud.

Just as the roots of art on the moon extend to the first days of the moon’s exploration, Koons is not alone in converting his artistic vision to our nearest neighbor.

The mission of the intuitive machines comes in the wake of the attempt to drop another American commercial satellite, a spacecraft called Peregrine that failed to reach the moon in January. Lander carried an artistic painting by British artist Sasha Jafri in addition to a small statue called Monark, created by a great cooperation led by Carnegie Mellon University, which contains pictures, poems, music and other materials.

“Humanity has always expressed itself through art, and the moon was an inspiration from the beginning of time,” says Rousseau. “Why do artists not look at the moon as a new place to present a new cultural understanding for whom we are as a civilization?”