The Strange Story Of the Sculpture On the Moon

braindrainbahrain writes "Slate magazine has written a story about the only work of art placed on the Moon: the Fallen Astronaut sculpture. It was placed on the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission to commemorate both American and Soviet deceased astronauts. The little statue, rather than bringing fame and fortune, ended up being nearly forgotten, and got both Apollo astronaut David Scott and Belgian sculptor Van Hoeydonck in hot water with the U.S. government."

Comments

It's a memorial, not an art exhibition.

[Sqr(twg)]

The sculpture was meant to commemorate the dead astronauts and cosmonauts, not to promote the guy who made it. Van Hoeydonck failed to understand this, and that was his undoing.

Re:It's a memorial, not an art exhibition.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any fucking moron is allowed to make money off just about anything, only artists are apparently supposed to starve for the rest of their lifes. No wonder we live in such a trash world.

Re:It's a memorial, not an art exhibition.

[UnknowingFool]

And what about honoring agreements that are made? Are artists so special that they are allowed to ignore them? From Scott's perspective, he had an agreement with sculptor Van Hoeydonck to make the original and the copy as the only two to be made as they were memorials to fallen astronauts. Van Hoeydonck contends that they were for all of mankind and thus he can make and sell as many copies as he wanted. This is no different from any commissioned work of art; the artist doesn't get to make as many copies as he/she wants.

hubris and strange misunderstandings

[obtuse]

Is this a promotional piece for the artist? Interesting that van Hoeyndonck's pride isn't in his chubby tuning fork, but in conning other people into doing a tremendous amount of work for him. "I am the only human being who has been able to get a sculpture to the moon." That, and the tendency of the Apollo era astronauts to be stand-up guys, makes me skeptical of skewing all those misunderstandings in his favor. They negotiated pretty carefully with the stamp dealer, but didn't discuss the intention of the piece or marketing of copies or any timeline? I don't feel sorry for the guy, and am a little irked that this promotion will likely make him a pile of money.

Re:Art?

[DogDude]

I'd have been ashamed to admit creating it.

Not everyone can appreciate art, but there's no reason to be a prick about it.

Re:Art?

[hey!]

Most people are priggish busybodies. If they don't understand something, they act like that's proof its worthless.

That said, a lot of the fun of art is having opinions about it. Not liking a piece of art isn't the same as "shitting on it". You like what you like; where you end up on treacherous ground is when you have an opinion about what other people *ought* to like.

I don't like the novel Twilight. I have very specific opinions about things that are not good about that novel. On the other hand, I understand why the people who like that novel like it. My not liking that novel doesn't make me better than them, only different. Likewise I can tell you a lot about what's wrong with Lord of the Rings as a novel, but it's a story I love and re-read every couple of years.

The more serious you are about an art form the less it becomes about what you like or don't like. Liking or not like is still important, but it's not everything.

Re:Art?

[fatphil]

How can you shit on shit?

Marcel Duchamp's /Fountain/ - at least you can try to piss in/on that.

Good grief...

[Frosty Piss]

It doesn't matter. The point is, there's no need to shit on somebody else's art.

Why not? Art is in the eye of the beholder, and indeed people actually get paid to shit on other people's art (figuratively). If an artist can't take criticism, they need to get out of the art biz (though they can still produce crap for their friends).

Seriously, no one can criticize "art"?