The Fallen Astronaut

Men went to the moon. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in the project. Billions of dollars were spent. Very high IQ and motivated people were responsible for it.

And we have a bunch of "artists" making a fuss and thinking themselves more important than they really are just because of an ugly piece of aluminum.

Art is indeed useless.

An interesting and honest recount of the true 70s Moon-Art story. Into this "Moonstruck" affray we a have a wannabee Belgian artist (Paul Van Hoeydonck) making sculptures that resemble props borrowed from a "Mad Max" set. desperately wanting his fifteen minutes of fame. Then there's NASA, driven purely by idealism and a big heap of US tax-dollars. And in the other corners we have the Apollo 15 crew and the World Media. So begins Paul Hoeydonck's attempt, aided by do-gooders to insinuate himself into one of the NASA missions and the consequences thereof. Despite everyone having a personal opinion of Art - from a deep, meaningful communication of one's soul to an object that's functional or pretty (or both), to something desirable, even fanciful as not being essential to Life, the deeper one goes into what Art is, the more Art fights back, reflecting today's battle-ground for the Cultural & Moral. I think the film-makers were pretty even-handed in their treatment of this debate, probably taking Hoeydonck's side, at times more than they should. But a very good watch, nonetheless

Broad synopsis - junk artist decides he can make some money by getting a sculpture on the Moon during one of the Apollo missions. Aided by the New York art world he jemmies himself in with one of the astronauts, and the proposition to the crew of Apollo 15 is 'I'll make six sculptures - drop one on the moon, you three astronauts keep one each, and me and my scheming partner will keep one. The one on the moon will be famous, and make all the other ones worth a fortune my boys". And the fate of the sixth sculpture? Oooh well we'll make a mould from that and sell a thousand or so as a 'limited edition' for $750 each.

So - these are not the actions of an altruistic artist wishing simply that a sculpture from Earth makes it to the Moon, otherwise there would only have been one sculpture, it would have been done properly via NASA, and the artist would have had the honour of being first on the Moon. But no. Greed, as always, gets in the way. So instead of doing it properly they get the astronauts to sneak the sculptures into their personal bags unofficially. These bags were searched, and all six acrylic-enclosed, fire hazard sculptures were confiscated. But that's no problem - they just grabbed an old test bare-metal version of the sculpture from a drawer and chucked it to the astronaut, who then got it past inspection. So far, so good.

But that meant the astronauts didn't get to benefit from owning their own personal 'moon-flown' statuette, and they'd been caught smuggling all sorts of stuff to the moon for later resale and profit, so seeing which way the wind was blowing they came up with the story that no, this was a figurine paying tribute to all fallen astronauts, and they had made a special plaque (which presumably was also a piece of art?) to lay next to the sculpture.

This did not please our pushy, greedy, Belgian artist (by the way, you will enjoy the various make-up choices he makes through the documentary, from rosy, rosy cheeks, to a fake St Tropez deep tan, to simple white powder puff death mask). Who then with his partner-in-greed buys a full-page ad in the New York Times offering the first of his 'limited edition of 950' replicas at $750 each. NASA, to their credit, comes down on the poor artist and his dealer mate's heads like a failed Atlas booster rocket, and their moneymaking stunt is stopped dead in its tracks.

The artist, his wife, and the dealer appear to spend the next four decades or so whining about this, culminating in this self-serving documentary that doesn't at any point put the views of NASA front and centre.

Enjoy. I did!