The moon is 238,900 miles away from Earth. In 1969, the three Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, made history by traveling those miles through space to land the shuttle on the moon and become the first humans to step foot on its surface.
While making monumental strides in technological advancement, the astronauts also played an important role in art and pop culture. Bringing aboard tapes of their favorite songs, the team listened to the music of Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, and Barbara Streisand, among others, giving these artists the bragging rights of being the first to have their music played among the cosmos.
Unbeknownst to the astronauts, they also facilitated the first art exhibition in space. A group calling themselves Experiments in Art and Technology created a miniscule ceramic tile titled “Moon Museum” that featured reproductions of artworks by Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Forrest Myers, David Novros, and John Chamberlain, and snuck it onto the lander. The rare tile is at the heart of the Akron Art Museum’s exhibition The Distance of the Moon. The show celebrates the 50th anniversary of the moon landing by examining the moon artistically and scientifically through the lens of photography and video.
Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, David Novros, Forrest Myers, Robert Rauschenberg, John Chamberlain, The Moon Museum, 1969, lithograph of tantalum nitride film on ceramic wafer, 9/16 x 3/4 in., Fabricated by Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, Collection of Mr. Jade Dellinger
While artists have depicted the moon since the earliest works of art, our ability to record it is less than 150 years old. The first clear photograph of the moon by John Draper was made only 100 years before the Apollo 11 touched down on its surface. The Distance of the Moon offers a wonderful range of still and moving imagery that, “considers the relationship between artistic impulse and scientific discovery, and our collective fascination with this celestial body.”
The show includes works by Nancy Graves, Craig Kalpakjian, Robert Longo, Georges Méliès, and James Turrell, in addition to materials from the Archive of Amateur Astronomers Society of Voorhees and NASA.
NASA, Apollo 15 Mission, 1971, 14x14 in., gelatin silver print, Collection of the Akron Art Museum, purchased with funds from Goodyear Aerospace, 2003.36
Craig Kalpakijan, Moonworks: Proposal for a drawing on the Moon, #4, Bay of Rainbows, 2003, 32x25 in.
Georges Méliès, Journey to the Moon, 1902 film, duration 12 minutes, 53 seconds
Robert Longo, Untitled (moon in shadow), 2006, digital pigment print, 10x10 in., Collection of the Akron Art Museum, Gift of Barbara Schwartz, 2008.175
NASA, Apollo 11 Mission, 1969, gelatin silver print, 14 x 14 in., Collection of the Akron Art Museum, purchased with funds from Goodyear Aerospace, 2003.35
The Distance of the Moon is on view at the Akron Art Museum through March 15, 2020.