The ‘mad professor’ of the contemporary art world decamps to Hamburg for a new showcase dedicated to his ongoing interstellar exploration. We’re talking American cult artist Tom Sachs‘ exhibition Space Program – Rare Earths which has just opened at the city’s Deichtorhallen. In the fourth installment of the artist’s Space Program series his astronauts head to Vesta, the brightest and closest asteroid to Earth, with one goal—to harvest the protoplanet’s rare earth minerals which are needed to perpetuate Earth’s rampant addiction to technology. Sachs and his crew have engineered all that is necessary for survival from plywood, foam core, screws, hot glue, and various other tools of their trade. Set across one of the venue’s voluminous former market halls, an interactive setting has been created featuring a series of original sculptures and bricolage works.
In the course of the exhibition, the artist and his team will activate the sculptures through performance demonstrations of protocol and procedure, including scientific exploration and mineral extraction on Vesta’s surface, food delivery, entertainment, human waste disposal, and in total contrast, the ritual of the Japanese tea ceremony. As said, the setup is interactive, and quite interestingly, visitors are invited to undergo an indoctrination process, whereby proving their worth through a series of tasks and questions. they may earn the right to participate in the installation as a member of Sachs’ space team, witnessing an array of much-publicised elements from past missions, including the Landing Excursion Module and Mission Control Center, as well as new installations and a live demonstration of the programme’s flight plan (on through Apr 22).
Deichtorhallen
Deichtorstrasse 1-2 (Münzviertel)
20095 Hamburg
Telephone: +49 40 321030
Tue-Sun 11am-6pm
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
