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.

[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.

And the undangerous Belgians

[freax]

“The astronauts told me that when they met Nixon later he asked them, ‘The artist—he’s a Democrat?’ They said, ‘No, he’s Belgian,’ and he said, ‘OK.’

Apollo 12 Moon Museum might have been first ...

[danomatika]

Don't forget the allegedly smuggled "Moon Museum" etching on Apollo 12. Andy Warhol penis sketch FTW.

This somewhat bizarre story stems from research conducted by Colombia University historian Gwen Wright, whose PBS show History Detectives unearthed evidence that a tiny, penny-sized ceramic chip etched with six sketches – one each from Warhol, Oldenburg, Rauschenberg, David Novros, John Chamberlain and Forrest "Frosty" Myers – landed on the moon with the Apollo 12 mission and is still there today.

Re:Art?

[fahrbot-bot]

|>E#

I just made that up and pronounce it to be art. You are allowed to either appreciate it's beauty or admit that you hate all art. Any -1 mods are merely people who don't understand art and whose opinion on art should therefore be ignored.

I'm reminded of the scene in L.A. Story in which Harris (Steve Martin) is admiring and remarking on a painting hanging in the museum:

Harris: I like the relationships. I mean, each character has his own story. The puppy is a bit too much, but you have to over look things like that in these kinds of paintings. The way he's *holding* her... it's almost... filthy. I mean, he's about to kiss her and she's pulling away. The way the leg's sort of smashed up against her... Phew... Look how he's painted the blouse sort of translucent. You can just make out her breasts underneath and it's sort of touching him about here. It's really... pretty torrid, don't you think? Then of course you have the onlookers peeking at them from behind the doorway like they're all shocked. They wish. Yeah, I must admit, when I see a painting like this, I get emotionally... erect.

[The camera pulls back and the painting is revealed to be of a large red rectangle.]