Image from Mars Rover Landing; Vija Celmins, Untitled, 1970
When the Mars Rover landed, I was taking post-1945 art history with Libby Lumpkin. Everyone in class had seen the video of the Rover’s descent, bouncing and rolling in its comical crash across the Martian surface.
We were talking about post-minimalism, the late sixties, the first moon landing, and Vija Celmins, flipping through slides of her topographical surfaces.
I’d just heard that Laurie Anderson was NASA’s first artist in residence, and so I brought it up. “NASA is probably making the best contemporary art in the world right now,” Libby said, leaning against the wall and planting her black cowboy boot flat against the desert floor.
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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is having an open house this weekend. Click here for details.
Funny, I always assumed David Bowie was involved in the space program. Must have been that song 🙂
You gotta know that Bowie loves NASA : )
We went to the JPL open house and got to see the Mars Rover in action. It was, as I’d predicted, cooler than any art piece I’ve seen in recent memory… except maybe Tara Donovan. But her stacked straws have some hefty competition with those JPL designers, that’s for sure.