Visionary artist TOM SACHS finally managed to transcend Earth’s orbit through art when his “Space Program” show opened at GAGOSIAN GALLERY this weekend. Featuring a life-sized replica of the Apollo 11 moon lander, mission control, and NASA’s uniform room, all customized to his personal specifications using ordinary hardware store materials (including weaponry and hard-liquor delivery systems), the enormous display was the must-see big bang that announced LA’s fall art season. Lucky VIPs were treated to a full-scale demonstration of the exhibit (including the obligatory “moon landing”) on Friday nite, and Supertouch was along for the trip. HAVE A LOOK:

After installing the last screw on the ship, chief engineer Tom Sachs cleared the ship for takeoff…

Backstage in the astronaut’s dressing room…

The NASA beer cooler…

With advanced locking systems to keep the suits dry …

The homemade Tyvek (the ripstop FedEx envelope material) space gloves…

Custom space Nikes. The first step on the moon’s gotta be fresh to death. Look for these at iD soon..

Swooshes in space…

The devil’s in the details…

Right down to the serial numbers…

Luckily, the ship comes with better assembly instructions than Ikea…

All’s quiet in Mission Control…

Until the “astronauts” are loaded for “liftoff”…

Last looks at Earth…

Ready for touchdown….

“Neil Armstrong” breaks out…

And checks for signs of “intelligent” life…

Before digging a real hole in Gagosian’s $100K floor to collect some “Moon” rocks…

And claiming the planet in the name of the U-S-of-A…

Nike’s Mark Parker salutes the accomplishment…

While Sandy Bodecker heads up to the cockpit for a dose of rocket fuel…

Apparently, this is the “Right Stuff”…

Painter Tom Woodruff wore a spacesuit of his own…

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.