Jeff Koons is sending a series of new sculptures to the moon, with the digital copies being sold as NFTs down here on earth.
It’s a statement that is both staggering and entirely predictable. It has a dystopic quality to it. It sums up everything that has ever been wrong with Jeff Koons, and everything wrong with NFTs – the most commercialised artform yet.
I hesitate to even call this art, the monetary motivation so palpable and one dimensional. It’s also somehow revoltingly male. No chance a woman was in the room when they came up with this abomination. It’s a rich bloke, surrounded by other rich blokes, thinking of ways to get richer and branding it pioneering art.
The sculptures will be aboard a spacecraft set to launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Merritt Island, Florida. They will then travel on a lunar lander, known as Nova C, a device created by private American company Intuitive Machines. Upon arrival, Koons’ work will be permanently housed in a “transparent, thermally coated cube”.
Intuitive Machines vice president Jack Fischer has claimed this is the “first authorised works to be placed on the surface of the moon.” Authorised by who? The moon police? What if we don’t want a Jeff Koons on the moon? That’s prime real estate! Why does he get it? Anyone with a bit of cash can just decide to go and dump whatever they like on the moon?
The project and the NFT launch have been branded ‘Moon Phases’. Koons’ statement (Trigger Warning – dangerous levels of talking out of one’s arse await) explains why he chose this as his earth-shattering debut into NFTs.
“I wanted to create a historically meaningful NFT project rooted in humanistic and philosophical thought,” he began. “Space explorations have given us a perspective of our ability to transcend worldly constraints. These ideas are central to my NFT project, which can be understood as a continuation and celebration of humanity’s aspirational accomplishments within and beyond our own planet.”
And the crypto bros will lap that right up. It’s Elon Musk-esque chauvinism. It’s philosophical art for guys who use Jordan Peterson for therapy – bold and striking and superficially appealing, but devoid of all meaning and actually deeply flawed when closer examined.
For this is a business venture, not an artistic endeavour. If they’ve got the money then go ahead and do it, sure, but let’s not pretend it’s something virtuous. It isn’t.
