Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
Tom Sachs is an American contemporary artist known for a variety of different reasons such as his installation pieces that tour the world from gallery to gallery, his sneaker collaboration with Nike, his ceramic pottery, his handmade paintings and even his set designs for musicians such as Frank Ocean. Over the past ten years or so, Tom Sachs has become quite the household name due to his makeshift style that seeps its way into the constant flow of work in many sectors of the art, fashion and even music industry.
The makeshift style, a signature that marks all of Tom Sachs’ work, stems from his constant need to re-create or even re-envision everyday objects with everyday materials which evidentially created the artist’s bricolage aesthetic. The idea of recreating common objects arises from his obsession with urban consumer culture and the idea of the general person’s wants and needs. Sachs cuts out the idea of money, buying and essentially the middle man between a consumer and its supplier as he makes his own versions of mundane objects in the form of sculptures. These mundane objects might take the form of a makeshift boombox, a makeshift gun, a makeshift Hasselblad camera, or a makeshift full-scale replica space station. Tom Sachs is able to highlight his ability to inventively transform ordinary, everyday objects into pieces of art by using everyday materials such as plywood, cardboard, resin, tape, paint and something that could be seen as one of the most important factors within all of his work, a human touch. The human touch is used as a tool by Sachs to create a personality around all of his creations. This personal factor is a tool used within the creation process of all of his sculptures to showcase imperfections, dents, scratches and errors that show that the object has been created by a human being, it is personal, and therefore every creation has a personal touch that couldn’t be manufactured in a factory by a machine. Sachs doesn’t want the sculptures to look like the real objects he mimics, but rather, sculptures that have been created to look or even do the task of the item (although sometimes in a very makeshift fashion) the artist sets out to re-create.
This very personal, human-made approach to sculpture is seen most vividly through the body of work titled ‘Boombox Retrospective’, a series of sculptures that started in 1999 and is still continuing, all around the icon of street culture, the boombox, and the designs of boomboxes themselves. As time has passed this project has become a staple for the artist as he creates boomboxes from handheld devices to eight-foot mega structures that release sound around a gallery space. Once again, these sculptures are moulded together using materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, foam-core and clay, intertwined together with a fusion of duct tape, glue and wire, but what makes the sculptures so astonishing is the fact that despite their bricolage and rather hazardous aesthetic, each sculpture is fully operational and ready to emit various sounds in any space available. Boombox Retrospective showcases Sachs’ personal and rather human touch through the construction stage of the sculptures, but they also showcase a very humoristic side to the artist as he adds design aspects that wouldn’t normally spring to mind when thinking about the typical sculpture. These design aspects can take the form of anything from a machete or katana chained to a speaker, to an umbrella to protect the speaker from water damage, to a boombox system created to also be a makeshift fridge that dispenses a variety of alcohol or even a boombox system made out of vintage arcade systems; the possibilities are never-ending for the artist, even if the design aspects might not be so useful for a general viewer.
Sadly there are no current Tom Sach’s exhibitions currently happening in London, but If you are intrigued by Sachs’ bricolage aesthetic and out of the box thinking, then you are in luck: Tom Sachs’ body of work titled ‘Ritual’ that was on show in Thaddaeus Ropac London from 3rd June to 31st July 2021 is still available to view on the Thaddaeus Ropac website. With Ritual, Sachs reflected on consumerism while dealing with the history of urban living and the unique subcultures specific to the city. Sachs’ artistic drive is powered by what he calls ‘guilty consumerism’; for him, the making of an object is a way of connecting with it, building intimacy. A quote from Sachs himself explains his practice and the idea of creating a product from scratch rather than physically purchasing it. “as I create, I meditate on it and the lust of acquiring a product is replaced by the love of making it.” The exhibition demonstrated the comprehensive spectrum of Sachs’ distinctive sculptural practice and his love of creating, it is surely one to check it out.
Check out the installation views, a Tom Sachs Zine and even an artist interview with the artist himself.
Link to exhibition - https://ropac.net/exhibitions/588-tom-sachs-ritual/
