Little house on the moon: is space the artworld's final frontier?
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Version 0 of 1. In space, no one can hear you criticise art. No one can touch it or see it either, except an occasional visiting astronaut, a powerful telescope, or … aliens. And yet, space is art's final frontier. In 2002, Damien Hirst sent a painting into space. It was a miniature example of his expensive, multicoloured spot paintings. But Beagle 2, the British attempt to make a mark on Mars and was carrying Hirst's artwork lost contact before it ever landed on the red planet, and was presumably destroyed. Perhaps it's just as well that the aliens did not get their first impression of human beings from a Damien Hirst painting. (Unless, of course, they seized Beagle 2 and, after seeing how rubbish our art is, called off their planned invasion.) Now a sculpture is to be sent out of this world. The Moonhouse is a red house that will be sent by space shuttle, making it the first artwork on the moon. The structure will build itself and then stay on the lunar surface. The dream of Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, which began more than a decade ago, looks set to become real this week – and it's all because of crowdsourced funding. It doesn't sound like the greatest work – although it will, presumably, have little competition out there – but art on the moon is a great idea, because one of the most powerful things art can do is to commemorate history. Human presence on the moon deserves a monument. A red house is OK, but it would be even more fun if this inspired Nasa to send a mighty colossus to the moon – perhaps a giant statue of Neil Armstrong, or a replica the Statue of Liberty. Anything, really, to mark humanity's achievement of reaching the moon and to abolish persistent conspiracy theories that spread doubt about one of humanity's greatest adventures. When I search "moon landings", the second option Google shows is "moon landings faked." In other words, almost as many people look up "moon landings faked" as look up the moon landings. The longer we stay away from the moon – it's been more than 40 years since the last moonwalk – the more tempting it becomes for us to think that the Apollo programme, which got there between 1963 and 1972, was some kind of specious propaganda by the US government. To prove once and for all that the moon is a place people have visited, we need a monument. Perhaps Sweden, with its distance from the space ambitions of the US, Russia and China, is the right country to launch such a sculpture. I hope the Moonhouse will do the trick. In spite of my longing for a lunar monument, we should probably have some caution and humility in sending art into space. We don't just want to add to the ever-growing cosmic clutter of old satellites. The finest artwork sent into space is engraved on a panel fixed to the Voyager 1 probe, which has now left the solar system and entered interstellar space. The "golden record" is a symbolic summary of earth's location and human knowledge. It's beautiful and simple. And this work of art is truly voyaging where no art has gone before. |