CHF Chicago Humanities Festival

Panel

  • E-Mail
    (e.g. amandasmith@gmail.com)

    (Please separate multiple email addresses with commas.)

    (You may use or edit the message above.)

  • PRINT

  • Share

  • TEXT SIZE
Art on Mars - Chicago Humanities Festival

Art on Mars Richard Gray Visual Art Series

ABOUT 

  • ABOUT Tom Sachs

    New York born sculptor Tom Sachs has always pushed the limits with his provocative installations of modern icons. His interest in consumerism, high fashion labels, and iconic toys like Hello Kitty has created an artistic reputation for being razor sharp, witty, controversial, and progressive. Tom resides in New York and received his art degree in Vermont from Bennington College.

     

    Profile

  • ABOUT Gregg Vane

    Gregg Vane is head of the solar system advanced missions organization at the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he and his teams create the concepts for the next generation of planetary robotic explorers for the US space program. With degrees in astronomy, geology and geophysics, his early work in seismology took him to Antarctica and South America. Later, at JPL he was the co-inventor of a new tool for studies of the earth and other planets of our solar system, the imaging spectrometer.

     

     

    Profile

  • ABOUT Adam Steltzner

    As chief engineer and development manager for the Mars Science Laboratory focused on entry descent and landing phase, Adam Steltzner’s job is to ensure that the intricately designed NASA Mars rover vehicle lands safely. Steltzner has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Davis and a master’s degree from the California Institute of Technology.

     

    Profile

  • ABOUT Lawrence Weschler

    Lawrence “Ren” Weschler is CHF Artistic Director Emeritus. He is a graduate of Cowell College of the University of California, at Santa Cruz (1974). He was a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine for twenty years, shuttling between political tragedies and cultural comedies, and is the author of over a dozen books, including Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder for which he was a finalist for both the Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle Award, and Everything that Rises; A Book of Convergences for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism in 2007.

    Profile
Click next to learn more...

1 of 1

Advance tickets are no longer available online or by phone for this program. Tickets will be available at the door. A $5 surcharge applies to all door tickets.

Artist Tom Sachs is best known for elaborate re-creations of icons of modern American life. He has replicated toilets, guns, cameras—even a fully functioning McDonald’s restaurant—from scratch, using everyday materials, each one a masterpiece of design and engineering. In 2007, he upped the ante to a full-scale Apollo moon landing, complete with Mission Control, at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. Afterward, Gregg Vane, director of solar-system projects at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, challenged Sachs to shift from past to future. Next year, Sachs and his team, in collaboration with JPL, will stage a full-scale Mars landing in New York’s Park Avenue Armory. CHF artistic director emeritus Lawrence Weschler engages Sachs, Vane, and Adam Steltzner, chief engineer for entry descent landing at JPL, in a conversation about art, technology, and the delights of inquiry.

blog Read the CHF Blog post about this program.

The annual Richard Gray Visual Art Series recognizes a significant gift from founding CHF board member and distinguished art dealer Richard Gray.

Download this program as a podcast!

Learn More

Similar Programs

Panel

When Dancers and Biologists Collide

Odde, Flink, and members of Flink’s dance company, Black Label Movement, share recent outcomes and video excerpts from their ongoing research and collaboration between science and dance.

Lecture

The Subversive Artist: Siebren Versteeg in Conversation with Naomi Beckwith Richard Gray Visual Art Series

Artist Siebren Versteeg writes his own software code, avails himself of online media and commercial databases, and creates high-tech works. He discusses his work and the role of the artist in the digital age.

blog comments powered by Disqus
Support CHF - Donate Now

Festival Sponsors

© Copyright 2011 Chicago Humanities Festival