{"title":"Exhibitions","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"swiss-passport-office-exhibition","title":"Swiss Passport Office","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSwiss Passport Office\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGalerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOctober 5 - November 10, 2018\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003e\"With this project we break down the borders and eliminate the concept of nationality\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003eThis comes at a time where our liberal democracies are being threatened, and oppressed people all over the world live in danger and without refuge.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003eBorders are artificial, created by governments and the corporations who control them.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003eSwiss Passport Office represents enforcement of their artificiality, the antithesis of freedom, and the movement of people and goods.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003eWith Swiss Passport Office every man and woman may be Swiss\u003c\/em\u003e.\" Tom Sachs \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To coincide with London’s Frieze Week, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac London will remain open for 24 hours on 5th October 2018 for the issuing of Swiss passports at American artist Tom Sachs’ Swiss Passport Office installation. Between 6pm on Friday 5th October and 6pm on Saturday 6th October, visitors can be issued with a Swiss passport at a cost of €20 (no British pounds will be accepted). Those wishing to purchase a passport will be photographed and have their name hand-typed onto a serial-numbered Tom Sachs Studio passport, stamped with a Studio endorsement and entered into the permanent database. Following this 24-hour period, the Swiss Passport Office installation will remain on view at the gallery until 10th November, but closed for the issuing of passports. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An installation of international significance, Swiss Passport Office encompasses contemporary concerns relating to Brexit, Syria and Trump’s immigration policies and their challenge to the notion of global citizenship.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003e\"To effect change, we must first imagine the world not the way it is, but the way we want it to be\"\u003c\/em\u003e Sachs says. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003e\"The Swiss passport is the most prestigious brand name in international identity.\"\u003c\/em\u003e Tom Sachs \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For Sachs, Switzerland is a nation of boundaries: geographically it sits in an imposing mountainous landscape; economically it acts as a shelter for extreme wealth; and politically it holds a status as an EU non-member state and was a safe haven during times of war or persecution. Swiss citizenship is “\u003cem\u003ethe ultimate status nationality, representing wealth, neutrality and freedom\u003c\/em\u003e\"; a status Tom Sachs wishes to make available to all. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As a sculptor Sachs is perhaps best known for his elaborate, \u003cem\u003ebricolage \u003c\/em\u003erecreations of masterpieces of engineering and design. In an early show he made Knoll office furniture out of phone books and duct tape; later, he recreated Le Corbusier’s 1952 Unité d’Habitation using only foamcore and a glue gun. Major projects have included a home-made life-size Apollo Lunar Excursion Module and a McDonald’s restaurant created using plywood, glue and assorted domestic kitchen appliances. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 2017 Tom Sachs created \u003cem\u003eTea Ceremony \u003c\/em\u003efor The Nasher Sculpture Center, a distinctive reworking of chanoyu, or traditional Japanese tea ceremony—including the myriad elements essential to that intensely ritualistic universe. In the Nasher’s indoor galleries, Sachs created a tea house in a garden accessorised with variations on lanterns, gates, a wash basin, a plywood airplane lavatory, a koi pond, an ultra HD video wall with the sublime hyper-presence of Mt. Fuji, a bronze bonsai made of over 3,600 individually welded parts, and other objects of use and contemplation, all made from commonplace materials easily procured at local art supply stores or through the McMaster-Carr hardware catalogue. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His work can be found in major museum collections worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo and Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Tom Sachs Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39823200583870,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0044\/2813\/6551\/products\/c3c9cfa77970a50b44ce8c142fa20688.jpg?v=1622129807"},{"product_id":"nuggets-1","title":"Nuggets","description":"\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eNuggets\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJeffrey Deitch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMay 5 - June 4, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e“How did these get here!?” I was shocked to see a pile of stickers on my gallery reception desk in the Spring of 1996 with the outrageously provocative phrase “Nuke the Swiss” printed above a red cross. “They were left there by that funny guy who comes in here all the time,” my staff explained. A few weeks later, I was there when the culprit walked in, smirking as he handed me a fresh stack of Nuke the Swiss stickers. His engaging manner somehow neutralized the egregious content of his free art. This was my first introduction to Tom Sachs, who twenty years later, still visits during his walks around the neighborhood, and who continues to perfect his fusion of radical conceptual performance, Modernist idealism, bricolage and provocation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTom and I have discussed presenting his work in my gallery since 1996, but it took twenty years to realize an exhibition. There were several false starts. In the late 1990s, Tom amused himself by setting up a contest between three art dealers who were keen to show his work, Angela Westwater, Mary Boone, and myself. He even published a zine about the “competition.” He decided that Mary Boone was the winner and rewarded her with a solo show. I opened my copy of The New York Times on September 30, 1999 to see the astonishing headline, “Art Dealer Arrested for Exhibition of Live Ammunition.” Tom had placed a vase full of live 9-millimeter cartridges on Mary Boone’s reception desk for visitors to take home as souvenirs. Mary was hauled off to jail for unlawful distribution of ammunition and resisting arrest. She was also charged with possession of unlawful weapons and possession of stolen property for another piece in the show, which featured homemade guns. I was lucky to have dodged a bullet. There was much more water under the bridge, but I will save those stories for my memoirs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLast year Tom called to invite me for a tea ceremony. He had transformed a section of his wunderkammer studio into a subversion of a Japanese tea house, constructed with Con Edison excavation barriers and Blue Foam instead of rice paper and bamboo. I was deeply entranced in Tom’s remix of the tea ceremony when he stunned me by lifting the lid of a lacquer box that I assumed would contain an exquisite tea biscuit. Instead of a biscuit, it was perfectly measured line of cocaine. The ceremony was confounding, but the taste of the carefully sourced matcha was transporting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSome months later Tom told me the good news that his entire tea house along with its extensive Japanese garden and his bronze bonsai tree (made from 3,500 casts of Q-tips, tampon cases, tooth brushes, and enema nozzles) would be the focus of a major exhibition at the Noguchi Museum. In addition, his Boom Box retrospective, which had been enthusiastically received in Austin, would be coming to the Brooklyn Museum. Tom suggested that maybe now was the time to present the gallery show that we had been discussing for twenty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTom’s proposal for our gallery show was Nuggets, a presentation of his Sachsified versions of Modernist masterpieces. The doorbell to Tom’s Center Street studio is marked “Brancusi.” Appropriately, the major work in the exhibition is Tom’s response to Brancusi’s Le Coq, perfectly crafted from plywood, resin and sheet metal screws, rather than marble. In Michel Gondry’s film Be Kind Rewind, the protagonists, video store clerks played by Jack Black and Mos Def, remake their favorite movies in the vacant lot behind the shop after they have inadvertently erased the store’s inventory. Their “sweeded” versions of movies become more popular with their customers than the originals. In his way, Tom has been “sweeding” the icons of modern art and consumer culture his whole career. We will find out whether the audience prefers Tom’s reboot of Brancusi to the real thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThere is an aesthetic equivalence in Tom’s world between icons of modern art and icons of contemporary consumer culture. Tom’s sculpture of a laundry basket, meticulously crafted out of plywood and resin is mounted on a museum pedestal with the same reverence as his Brancusi. He worships the brilliantly efficient design of the lowly cinder block as much as he admires a stacked sculpture by Donald Judd. My favorite “Nugget” is Tom’s astonishing and functioning exact size reconstruction of a photocopy machine, perhaps the true icon of Post Modernism. Tom’s work embodies a contradiction at the core of his unique aesthetic: his veneration of the purity of modern art and industrial design and his love of bricolage and handicraft. His works are fabricated with the combination of industrial rigor and hand made artistry that have become his trademark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe works in Nuggets span the spectrum of Tom’s artistic, cultural and sociological interests, from Brancusi to McDonald’s. Among the resonant works are his Kelly Bag in plywood, canvas, steel, resin, latex and nylon and his plywood, latex, and epoxy milk crate, with steel hardware, his homage to a masterpiece of modern design. There is also Nutritional Facts, a giant wood burned chart of the nutritional content of the full McDonald’s menu. The works are presented on pedestals like rare tribal sculpture in the Metropolitan’s Michael Rockefeller Wing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tom Sachs Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39823498379454,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0044\/2813\/6551\/products\/bb6b608fc9118f0a9fbb0b6be173fb8f.jpg?v=1622132415"},{"product_id":"space-program-europa","title":"Space Program: Europa","description":"\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSpace Program: Europa\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eYerba Buena Center for the Arts\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSeptember 18, 2016 - January 15, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTargeting Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, this expansive sculpture exhibition offers an unprecedented view into Sachs’ extraordinary artistic output and advances his quest to find extraterrestrial life with bricolaged sculptures. The exhibition will fill YBCA with everything his astronauts need to successfully complete their voyage—including the Mobile Quarantine Facility, Mission Control, the Apollo-era Landing Excursion Module (LEM), and special equipment for conducting scientific experiments—immersing the audience in a universe of sculpture occupying the entire downstairs galleries in addition to YBCA’s public spaces.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSpace Program: Europa will feature live activations of the Europa flight plan by Sachs’ astronauts during the opening and closing weekends. In these demonstrations, the astronauts will showcase the rituals and procedures of their mission, including the cultural export of chanoyu, the ancient art of the tea ceremony. Stay tuned for more information about the closing weekend. In the meantime, come by for a screening of A Space Program, a film that captures Sachs’ 2012 mission to Mars.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSachs has also created a new site-specific installation, Logjam Café. Logjam Café will be open to the public as a neighborhood coffee shop, occasional bar, and OCD rehab center, where visitors can experience firsthand the artist’s obsession with the tools of his craft.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTom Sachs’ Space Program: Europa exists in a universe with Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, presented at the Noguchi Museum from March 23 to July 24, 2016. The project continues, post-Europa, in a return to earth and Tea Ceremony, at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, September 9, 2017 to January 7, 2018.\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Tom Sachs Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39824018735294,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0044\/2813\/6551\/products\/a2182c327a8abae57dfaa4c20cfe9c3a.jpg?v=1622141214"}],"url":"https:\/\/store.tomsachs.com\/collections\/exhibitions.oembed","provider":"Tom Sachs Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}