It was recently announced that Jeff Koons will be launching an NFT project that will have his work go to the moon. Many artworks have been sent to space, but this is the first time artworks have ever been approved to land on the surface of the moon. The intention is that the sculptures remain there in perpetuity. The sculpture art project is titled Moon Phases and is scheduled to land on the moon in July.
“I wanted to create a historically meaningful NFT project rooted in humanistic and philosophical thought,” said Koons in a press release. “Our achievements in space represent the limitless potential of humanity. 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.”
The Moon Phases sculptures will land in the Oceanus Procellarum after being launched from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in a fully automated mission orchestrated by the private aero-space company Intuitive Machines. The project was first initiated when team members from Intuitive Machines approached Koons’s team about the possibility of getting his work on the moon back in November. “We got excited really fast,” said Marc Glimcher, President and CEO of Pace Gallery. “The rocket is already on the pad. In fact it was actually supposed to launch in March.” Glimcher described the launch as a build up for a special mission Intuitive Origins is planning for 2024: the first manned launch to the moon since the 70s which will supposedly kick off an age of mining and manufacturing on the moon.
But in the meantime, for this relatively smaller project, Intuitive Origins is receiving assistance from two offshoot companies, one of which is 4Space. 4Space dubs itself a “female owned space company” which aspires to “advance the sustainability of human life by creating the first self-sustaining multi-industry economy in space.” 4Space is also an official channel partner of Jeff Bezos’s aero-space company Blue Origin, which launched Amoako Boafo’s paintings into space in August of last year. Another offshoot company, NFMoon, is going to generate the NFTs themselves. NASA will also be assisting on the project. The Moon Phases NFTs will be available through Pace Verso, Pace Gallery’s NFT platform. The land where the sculptures are displayed will be designated the first Lunar Landing Heritage Site
