Interviewer (3:06)

So, you know, I read that you were born in New York, but that you grew up in Connecticut. And you know that your own family history goes quite a ways into Manhattan and the five boroughs. Like, how do you describe this sort of Sacks family tree? In a way.

Tom Sachs (3:22)

So my ancestors came to New York via New London. I'm just kind of gonna smash all the ancestors together in one pile.

Dan Rubenstein (3:32)

Sure.

Tom Sachs (3:33)

Via New New London and North Adams, Mass. Part of the big Jewish immigration into the east coast in the the end of the 19th century. Everyone kind of wound up in lower Manhattan. My great grandfather was a rag and bone man. A guy who would like push the cart and sell stuff on the street on the Lower east side. And he had two sons. One became an accountant that helped build the irs and then spend the rest second half of his life as a devout Communist trying to dismantle it. Oscar Hannigsbur, and he's the voice of the Nazis movies that we did around 2001. And then his brother, my grandfather was a doctor. My other grandfather's a doctor. And they all, eventually, once they got some degree of affluence, moved out of Manhattan into Queens. And my parents are from Queens. And then they moved to Manhattan and then the suburbs where I grew up. I was born. My sister was born in the city, but we grew up in Westport, Connecticut, which was a town also in transition. There was kind of like a Jewish hippie alternative to Greenwich and with head shops and a Goodwill and hardware stores and a playhouse where the talking heads played. And kind of like some. It was like an alternative. People like the Rolling Stones and Ashford and Simpson lived there. It was like a hip place because it was pretty rural. Now all those great businesses have gone away to the Gap and Banana Republic and Home Depot and international brands and McMansions. The house that I grew up in, parents still live in. It is. Is like the last small house on a big piece of land because every other house around them is built to the maximum. Allowable footprint per square foot. So they've got kind of a small place surrounded by trees. Everyone else is kind of like the holdouts. Yeah. And I think when they. Because of the land, that when they die, they'll bulldoze this beautiful little jewel box and do the maximum footprint. I got to witness the horror of a classmate of mine who became a developer who bulldozed all the Marcel Breuer buildings in town. Marcel Breuer houses and Bauhaus houses. Because they were not efficient and didn't maximize the space. And they certainly weren't landmarked. So all that stuff got smushed. Um, It's a lot. Westport's a lot like, you know, like a Jewish New Canaan in a lot of ways. And the. The kind of relationship with affluence and. And decadence is very much alive. And although my experience was more aspirational. Like, you know, when I. As a kid, we only had one car in the family. So my mom had to drive my dad to the train station for his job into the city every day so she could have the car all day. And at the train station, she'd meet her friend Janet Horowitz, who wrote children's book. There were children's books that were published by Workman Publishing, which is another. Katie Workman's parents did that book. And that was like a. She did books of. It was like a map you'd open. It was a map so matchbox cars could drive around the page. And then you turn the page, and it was another map. And then their friend Martha Stewart would bring eggs that she grew that she had in her garden. Cause she raised chickens so she could have the family car. And that's kind of how that was before Martha made the jump to hyperspace. You know, these were all. I grew up in a community of women that made stuff. Cause the husbands were at.

Interviewer (7:37)

Oh, gosh, okay.

Tom Sachs (7:38)

And my mom take me to Goodwill, where we'd get furniture that was. You know, it was the 70s. So the furniture was made in the 60s or 50s or 30s. And so it was good stuff that was worth stripping and down off the paint and putting it in your home. Cause it was nice. It wasn't like the garbage that you find today that was made in the 2000s or 1990s. But my mom taught me how to wire a lamp and how to be handy. So I was kind of raised by these. These women that were in this really beautiful place where they had this opportunity to make stuff to make their lives better. This is not poverty this was affluence, but it was kind of a more craft based affluence. Like I remember, you know, before Martha Stewart, you couldn't buy balsamic vinegar in the supermarket. It just wasn't an extra virgin olive oil. Like it wasn't a thing. You had like white wine and red wine vinegar. And you certainly didn't have something called DOP that wasn't even an option now.

Interviewer (8:40)

Right. And what did your parents do?

Tom Sachs (8:42)

So my mom is a registered nurse. She worked in the emergency room at Norwalk Hospital. I think she did that after me and my sister were old enough to feed ourselves. So in high school she went back to nursing school. But she was a mom before that and, and still is a mom. And my dad had an independent insurance agency and sold insurance to the community.

Interviewer (9:08)

And I also read that you grew up in the reform movement. Like, was it a religious household?

Tom Sachs (9:13)

I mean, we did the Jewish thing out of guilt for my grandfather. And it was always something that I resented because of, because Hebrew schools at the same time of day as soccer practice. So I was cut from the soccer practice, from the soccer team, from missing, from missing so many games. And I really resented it. And, and I, you know, and, and you know, soccer was like an important part of my life, like before and during and after Hebrew school. And I was, you know, captain and I was like really into it. I was even New York City at a team called Kill All Artists. Years later. And it's. And I still like really believe in the sport and. But I. It was like something that we did for my grandfather. It was something that was. That my dad was forced upon my dad, so it was forced upon me. But the religion of our household was consumerism. I mean, that's what we talked about around the kitchen table. It wasn't about Judaism and all those stories. It was more about dad's new used BMW or mom's dress or when American Gigolo happened. It was people like my dad that made Giorgio Armani happen because everyone wanted to be like Richard Gere. So they like. Giorgio Armani was not huge. He was kind of unknown until he did the outfits for American Gigolo. And those scenes where he's going through his closet and all the neckties was something that my dad and his friends emulated. And they'd go into New York City to Barney's New York or to Armani boutique later and they would get those clothes. And so that was what my parents were really excited about. And as a result, I became interested in the aspirational Power of brands. So like. So for example, one of my I. There was this mountain called Powder Ridge that was an hour from where we grew up. Now it's closed because global warming, but it was a ski mountain and there is not enough snow there. They closed it a dozen years ago and we'd go there after school and I had this, this really cheap ski equipment that was kind of generic and I remember painting the. On the skis, the logos that I of Rossignol St Comp. I would paint them on my skis so I had better brands because I mean, it didn't really matter how, but it was like an asp because there were kids in my community who had the Rossignol SD comps or Olin Mark IVs and I always thought they were beautiful and wanted them. Something that I discovered later when visiting as an adult Jamaica. And I'd see things like Lexus Barbershop where people would name their barbershop after Lexus cars because it was an aspiration towards luxury and glamour and building your own making. The transformative power of art to make the world not the way it is, but the way you want it to be. If you, you're an astronaut, if you say you are.

Interviewer (12:17)

And you know, if we could go back in time. First of all, were you bar mitzvahed?

Tom Sachs (12:22)

I was in 1981. So after that and. And Martha Stewart catered my bar mitzvah.

Interviewer (12:30)

Oh, wow. Okay, that's. Those are some really good bragging rights, by the way.

Tom Sachs (12:35)

I mean, she wasn't, you know, she was a cape, she was a local caterer. It wasn't. She was, didn't have. She wasn't Martha Stewart Living and she hadn't written a book or anything, but she was.

Interviewer (12:42)

Do you remember what she served?

Tom Sachs (12:45)

Yeah, I can tell you not everything, but I can tell you what. I remember the first time I had quiche.

Interviewer (12:50)

Okay.

Tom Sachs (12:51)

And the first time I had those really tart lemon squares with a graham cracker crust on the bottom. Do you know that you've.

Interviewer (12:59)

I mean, I think so, yes.

Tom Sachs (13:01)

It's like very tart, almost gelatinous lemon pudding, but very, very tart under a sweet but blander graham cracker style crust. And it was a little square, like a two inch square.

Interviewer (13:15)

Okay.

Tom Sachs (13:16)

That's all.

Interviewer (13:17)

Wow, that's amazing. And so let's say, you know, after the, after the lavishly catered bar mitzvah.

Tom Sachs (13:25)

And it wasn't extremely lavish, it was just like she was the caterer that was. But it was as lavish as my parents could supply for sure. There's no doubt about that.

Interviewer (13:34)

Hey, that. And to this day they talk about it a brand name. But after that. But before you went off to school, like what was that? If we go back in time and visit you As a young 16 year old, like what. What kind of, what kind of young man were you?

Tom Sachs (13:48)

Well, so that was, you know, when I was 13 and with a bar mitzvah. There's also. I just want to. Just also want to outline that I recently found the invitation to my bar mitzvah and my remember was the first time my mom ever took me to a graphic designer to a. And we had a letterpress made and it was all in lowercase. And I was really impressed by the graphic design. I showed it to Yeju Choi, the designer of the book, and she was so impressed. Now I'm not saying I take credit for it. It could have been the graphic designer. But I remember going to that room looking through things called. There were fonts or type styles and paper and samples. And it was probably the first time in my life that I can remember being sort of a creative director because a graphic designer said to me, hey, what do you. You like this or you like this? And I had to choose. And I had never had a choice like that in my whole life. And that was because that's very much what my life's like now with a big studio team is that like the, the great people on the team bring me options that I can, you know, where I can drive, the look of the studio. And so that was the first time. But as a 16 year old, you know, I would just say that I spent my childhood, it was really unsuccessful. I mean I had to repeat ninth grade. I had to do summer school two or three times. I was kind of. I didn't really understand school and first grade, my first. I was like always behind pretty much until I got into college and I found my own internal standards of excellence when I started making sculpture. But I really had. Was very unsuccessful all through elementary, middle school and high school. But when I was about 17, I got a driver's license. You could get it at 16, but I was too much of a fuck up. And I remember having a conversation with my parents and we, we all agree because it was not just entirely them that I wasn't quite ready to. I need a little more time to like get my shit together. And I got my parents old Plymouth Volare wagon. Station wagon was my, was my car. And I was lucky enough to be exposed to the American hardcore Punk movement. Because in Stamford, Connecticut, which is 30 minutes from my. From my house was a club called the Anthrax that was in downtown Stanford, and it was an art gallery on the ground floor. In the basement was a punk rock venue. And the Anthrax was on the way from Manhattan to Boston. So if you were on the national tour circuit and you were a minor threat or Black Flag or the Dead Kennedys or the Minutemen or the Circle Jerks or whoever, you were probably going to play Anthrax because it could, you know, you could get out of the city, play one more gig, sleep on someone's sofa, and you're in Boston the next day. And I got to see many of those greats perform. And the Bad Brains were. Because they were more local, you know, they were D.C. they played a lot and they were around. And Sonic Youth even like. And these were rooms of 50 people in them. So I was exposed for the first time to an art movement. It wasn't. There was an art gallery upstairs, but I never really went there, so I don't really know what was up there. In my fantasy it was people like Tod T O D T this German art group, or Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer. I don't have no idea if it was really those people or not, but I imagine it being kind of like the East Village art scene and being really political, but I really have no idea. To me, Crass was the best because although that was English, I might have seen them when I lived in England later, but definitely they wouldn't have come to Anthrax. It was too far. But the graphic design and the politics of that really helped. And of course, the things I learned about consumerism, if I was painting fake brands on my skis when I was 13 and 14, by the time I was 17, I was debadging my car and taking Plymouth off of the station wagon because I wasn't getting paid by Plymouth. And I began to understand about the power of consumerism and brand loyalty and all the negativity around that. So I was even cutting the Levi's label off the back of my Levi's jeans, because I didn't. And really going the other direction. And that was then later, of course, reinforced in college when I was exposed to even crazier, more educated Marxists who had theory and literature behind this that I was not exposed to in high school. And by then I was able to sort of excel through sculpture. I learned to read and write and was able to perform academically in a way that wasn't throughout high school, mainly because I had found one part of my life was working and that enabled me, enabled me to make all the other parts work simultaneously. So I was not a good reader or writer, but I was motivated so I was able to get stuff done.

Dan Rubenstein (19:19)

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Interviewer (20:40)

Know, you eventually made your way to the aa, the architectural association in London, which, you know, I think you also had a little bit of a tricky time. But how London and how did that happen? How did you kind of.

Tom Sachs (20:50)

So my advisor was a dean of students at Bennington. He was also the architecture professor. There were like one or two architecture professors and we spent a lot of time together. Dean Beale, Patrick Beale. And he said I should check out the aa, which is kind of like, I don't know, like Cooper Union or something. It's like a pretty far out experimental architecture school. It's the most progressive architecture school probably in the world. And the closest thing to it is Cooper Union or was the one in Calais, is it called Sire in Los Angeles? Like it's that kind of the same circuit, the same brain trust, you know, storefront gallery, architecture gallery. Around the corner for my studio is kind of like saying, you know, what architecture can be. I really feel like it's an expansion for me of like the Values of arche gram. I mean, it's so many things, so many more things. You could really get a technical education there too. I'm not saying it's not that, but I remember Peter Cook and someone else from Archegram, they worked there in the AV department managing the slide projectors. Those guys were just at large because it was 40 years ago and they were young enough to be able to have a job doing an AV projector. Sir Cook now is acknowledged for his contributions. But I think back then they're teachers, professors, and we all did. Everyone plugged in the slide projector and did what they had to do to make the classes work. But there was a humility to just the blue collar aspect of being a professor. And it was a very special place. I dropped out after one trimester, after I took a class with Tom Dixon where we all had to make a piece of furniture using no money, using things down on the street. And there's a little contest and I won the contest. But I decided that what I really wanted was a job. And I wound up working for Tom in London and we have become lifelong friends.

Interviewer (22:57)

Oh, amazing. So you, he encouraged you to drop out essentially and just come work for him?

Tom Sachs (23:01)

No, I dropped out. That was, you know, I, I remember it was two things, two people. It was Tom Dixon's class where I really excelled because I was able to use my hands and the physicality of my work still so important. I'm not happy if I don't have a little blister or a scab or callus on hand, on my hands at any time, any given time. But it was building a thing. And also the AA was fantastic because it probably still is. All kinds of artists and architects do lectures all the time. And I remember I attended a lecture by Michael Craig Martin which was really influential about his work. But it was one of the first artists who I really. I could see the art could mean so many different things. It really opened my mind. But then I started a lifelong friendship with Richard Wentworth, who really blew my mind and said that I was an artist at the AA was like a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I think being an artist at the A was like being a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I think talking with him really encouraged me to let go of my bourgeois aspirations of having a successful upper middle class life where I could provide for my family and say, fuck it, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. I'm just gonna have a good time and make sculpture. And I think Richard really helped me. Not personally, not like he didn't tell me to drop out, but seeing his work and the way he talked about his work and seeing how exciting the ideas behind his work were really gave me confidence to spend time making stuff. And then after I dropped out, I asked Tom for a job or probably just showed up and said, I'm here to help.

Interviewer (24:58)

How long after that were you in London before you. I think you went to LA after that at some point.

Tom Sachs (25:04)

So I don't know, like that. My whole time in London was about a year, including like a few months AA and many months working with Tom and just. And it was also. London was great because all. It was very expensive and it was the first time I was like, not supported by my parents financially. I was totally independent and broke. And Tom gave us like £20 a day and lunch. So there wasn't. And it was. And it was such a good cook that it was like, even though it was never quite enough food to go around, the quality was so good that it would sustain you spiritually. He's so good. Like genius, that guy. Like, so many things. Music and his art, I think. Yeah.

Interviewer (25:48)

He plays the guitar, doesn't he?

Tom Sachs (25:49)

I mean, I don't know what he.

Interviewer (25:50)

Plays now, you know.

Tom Sachs (25:51)

Oh, yeah, he always has a restaurant going. Like, there's always. There's a rest and.

Dan Rubenstein (25:57)

Oh, that's true. That is true.

Tom Sachs (25:59)

So that's like. He knows how to do it and. And. And he's like, he, he's. And he's. Tom's also. He's English, but his parents, I think, are French or Tunisian. And so he's got like a really, like, rich background. And. And then. So I went back to Bennington for a year or so and then graduated in. And then I had a short list of like, what I was good about, how I was going to. What I was going to do next. And Frank Gehry, an opportunity came up there. So I worked in Santa Monica for about a year building the bent plywood furniture for Noel. And I was a knoll employee, but I worked with Frank and actually for someone right out of school, had a lot of time with Frank and we became friends and are still friends.

Interviewer (26:56)

And at this point there's something called Knolling, which of course has become integral to your process and how you like to describe your work. And can you explain a. What kind of. Were you having a good time in la? And how did this idea of knowing sort of strike you personally so deeply?

Tom Sachs (27:16)

If you could also explain what it is so Knolling. So when you're cleaning up a wood shop, you take all the tools and you lay them out on the table, and you blow it all off with a compressor, and you lay them all out at 90 degrees or parallel angles so that there's lots of space and you can see what you have. It's sort of like cleaning up without really cleaning up. You just kind of visually organize it so it takes up less chaotic space. It's just a way of organizing your stuff neatly so that your mind can see it quickly without getting caught up in it. And Andrew Cromlow, who's an artist that I went to Bennington with, who also studied architecture and sculpture, was the janitor at Frank Gehry's. And I said, andrew, what is it called when you line everything up like that? And he looked up on the wall and there was a knoll sign, and he said knolling. And that's how the word stuck. But it's something that's gained traction, I think, probably because Knoll was such an iconic brand. And like, the. In particular, the furniture of Florence Knoll was the. Was the most Knolled furniture. I always thought that the Knoll sofa and the credenza and all that stuff was like, really the apotheosis of the Bauhaus movement. I mean, she was like the, you know, the sexy niece of Mies van der Rohe. But really, the values of the Bauhaus were in her work best. And I still think if you were to look up sofa in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Florence Knoll's sofa. That's, to me, the most iconic piece of furniture that exists.

Interviewer (29:08)

And so it's kind of like the design or wood shop equivalent of like a mise en place for, like, a chef, where, like, everything is sort of, like laid out and organized in front of you.

Tom Sachs (29:19)

Exactly. I think it's the same word.

Interviewer (29:21)

And so, like, why did it meet? Why over the years, has it kind of, like, struck you? Is it because it's a kind of bringing order from chaos in a sense?

Tom Sachs (29:31)

Well, yeah, because there's different kind. Like, sometimes it doesn't make sense to put everything in your shop away. You want it out so you can use it, but it takes up a lot of space and you got to clean. And sometimes having a little bit of something to do that's meditative, that still connects you with your tools and your stuff is part of work. Like it. I don't really believe in writer's block. There's times when information Flows and when it gets stuck. But when it gets stuck, there's so many strategies that are worth doing. For example, clean and null your space because you have to clean and null your space. The worst time to clean and all your space is when you're in the middle of, like, an inspiration streak. But streaks come and go, and the key to getting over them is recognizing that you're in one and stopping immediately. I really believe if at first you don't succeed, give up immediately. Like, it's crazy to resist. It's going to happen. But what you do with that time, you know, if you spend that time cleaning and setting your tools or sharpening your chisels, if you're a carpenter or whatever, stretching a canvas, doing all that blue collar stuff, that's important to do because it bonds you with the process. You can't just, you know, show up at the pitcher's mound and throw a perfect fastball. You got to warm up, whoever you are. No one is immune. Even Louis Armstrong has to warm up his voice and his hands and play organic structures. We have to warm up. There's no way around it. So things like writer's block are just when you get so rigid and stuck that you decide to stress about it. Of course, this is an incredibly privileged position. My privilege in this case is time, right? Some of us don't have time. We got to get through it. But even then, just a few minutes of nolling. I mean, that's why I really trust cigarette smokers. I think cigarettes, not vaping, but cigarette smokers are really great because it's the exact amount of time, 10 minutes to take a break and think about something, just to like. Instead of wasting five hours, take 10 minutes and meditate. Sorry, I hate to use that word, meditation. It's so contaminated. But just to get a different perspective on something. I mean, that's all art ever is, is a different perspective. From a certain point of view, the opposite's equally valid.

Interviewer (32:06)

And so after la, you eventually moved back to New York and opened your own studio in around 1990. And in those early days, there was this sort of course now legendary piece in the Barney's window. What were those like, kind of early years like for you? And so it was like 1990 maybe to 1994, right? Because I think that's when Barney's happened.

Tom Sachs (32:29)

So I moved to New York. I had a job at Barney's New York installing a Frank Gary bent plywood furniture window. And I. And I. It was weird because I had done pretty much a year as an apprentice. And I was pretty, I had a pretty elite level of high end carpentry. Like after a year of doing something every day working under a true master, I had the ability to do like bent plywood furniture better than anyone on earth because we had invented a bunch of technologies in this team and it was only three of us under Frank. So for someone so young, I was very lucky. I fell into like a group of very high level makers and I was the assistant. But I. So I learned a lot. And then I wound up as a janitor at Barney's New York doing, helping out, painting windows out and like just schlepping. But I very quickly found myself to be in a position of being indispensable because I was a welder and a carpenter so I could fix stuff. And I helped for four or five years doing all kinds of things at Barney's. Like I, I built whole boutiques for Azzedine Alaia. I did window displays and lighting. And I would travel around the tri state area like painting and setting up windows under someone else's design and sometimes designing them myself or contributing to a design team. This is all under Simon Doonan's Lake leadership. And, and the Christmas windows were the main thing of the year. We'd start in July for Christmas. And one year was all the artists, famous artists, were asked to contribute a piece that were to be auctioned off for the Little Red Schoolhouse. And because I had worked there for a while, I asked if I could add a piece too. And there are famous artists like Ross Bleckner and what was his name? Bryce Martin, who had, you know, had big careers and showed up places like Mary Boone Gallery. And they had their pieces. And I made hello Kitty Nativity, which is like a creche about 2ft wide and with a hello Kitty as baby Jesus and Madonna as hello Kitty, Madonna as the mother Mary and Bart Simpsons as the Three Kings. And it was all inside of a McDonald's restaurant and it was in the display. And the Catholic League protested and sent death rats. And Barney's pulled it out of the window and issued a full page apology in the New York Times. There was a cover of the New York Post away with a manger.

Interviewer (35:34)

Yeah, I've seen the COVID It's in the book. I believe it's in the book. Is that right or something? Maybe I just saw it online, but it's.

Tom Sachs (35:42)

Is it in the book? The COVID Is there a picture of the COVID in the book? We should have. There's a picture of the work. There should have been a picture of the. We'll have to find a way of doing some content around that because that's a great. I mean, the. If you go to the New York Post website, there was like thousands and thousands of fantastic covers about like great moments in. In history and like this super low ball approach. I don't know, I guess it must have been a slow news day that day. But that was. I go, well, it's local news. Local news.

Interviewer (36:12)

Hey, hey, listen. That was a very. That's their bread and butter at the New York Post is sort of outrage over artists and anything lefty, I guess. And so obviously that was a big turning point for you. Did that like invigorate you to be kind of the most controversial artist in New York at the time, Even if it was only for a week or something?

Tom Sachs (36:33)

It was scary because there were death threats, there was anti Semitism. People in my family were mad at me. How dare you insult someone else's religion after our people have been persecuted for so long. You know, you're not showing tolerance. I was like, come on, it's Christmas. It's. And you know it. This is like the. The commercialization of Christmas. This isn't about like baby Jesus. This is about.

Interviewer (37:04)

And if I remember correctly. And if I remember correctly, the hello Kitty is wearing sort of like a dominatrix outfit.

Tom Sachs (37:12)

Well, no, that.

Interviewer (37:13)

Yes.

Tom Sachs (37:14)

So hello Kitty is just hello Kitty. I think she's. I think he's naked. I think he doesn't have any genitals. I don't remember. But the Mother Mary. Madonna. Madonna is in Madonna sex. I don't know if you remember Madonna sex, her legendary book.

Interviewer (37:34)

Yes.

Tom Sachs (37:35)

And I actually, I had. One of the jobs I had at Barney's was I set up the Madonna sex window, the metal book with a spiral. And I had to make aluminum Christmas trees that were spiral bound like a forest of them behind the book that was on a pedestal. And that was like. That was one of the jobs. So I was very familiar with the book. And it was a great book too. I don't own a copy of it, but I remember we had one precious copy of it and I had to take care of it. But I looked at every picture because it was so, like, sexy. And it's really one of the great Madonna moments. So I made it like a bustier. And she even had a headset just like the one I'm wearing. Because when she was in the sex dominatrix thing on stage, she performed with this kind of like. That was that time where you performed with a headset, and now it's just invisible. That was part of it. And I think the three kings that were three Bart Simpsons, they wore Hermes belts. And the manger had a McDonald's logo on top. And it was all inside of a shell of a tv. That was like the box. It was like a Sony. It's on the back. It said Sony. Even Sony's a brand that has always been important to me.

Interviewer (38:47)

And it's also kind of like, if you look, looking back on it today, it would be very kind of tame. I don't think it would be that controversial today, probably.

Tom Sachs (38:56)

Well, the thing about innovation, and I think this is why comedians kill themselves all the time, is because it's only funny if you think outside the box, right? Because no one had thought of it before. So it's new information. And then once you think outside the box and make that joke or make that innovative artwork or whatever, that box gets bigger. And everyone's sort of collective thought has to be even bigger than that box. It requires more. So it's this constant seeking of innovation that I think pushes those guys beyond where they can take it, because we all have our limits.

Interviewer (39:40)

And despite it being sort of scary and controversial and anything, did it actually spur the career in a way? Was it kind of a big bang or was it just kind of at the same time, ish?

Tom Sachs (39:51)

It was scary and exciting. And I was on TV in the news, and there was a lot of press and stuff. And there was a news truck that pulled up in front of the studio and ran electricity into my studio. It was very scary. And, you know, I still had a job at Barney's, so I was very concerned with my relationship with the brand because I had a good relationship with him. I mean, Simon Doonan, I think if you ask him, probably if my name comes up, he'll have some kind of trauma response because it was really hard on him. I mean, he got death threats, and it really put him under a lot of pressure that he'd probably never experienced. And he and I are still friendly and. And became very close to us. And that's where I met Glenn o', Brien, who crafted the New York Times apology. He wrote the text for it, which I didn't really like because I thought it was placating and I thought that it was bullshit that Barneys wanted the glamour of art without taking any of the responsibility of it. And they kowtowed to the Catholic League, which was a group that besides this, they were also had a hell anti condoms campaign. And by the way, this was at the height of the AIDS pandemic where condoms and communications around safe sex were so elemental to the war against aids. And I mean, now there's prep and different, it's different. But at the time it was like a revolution that to defang condoms, like, as being shameful. Like, you'd have them on like stores, on the counter, like, free, take as many as you want. It was like that, that was like that time. And they were against that. So these guys were like outright assholes, especially in a gay community like Barney's Windows, that they would like, not fight. I thought was really cowardly, but it was scary. Like, these are just guys trying to do their job as a window display artist. Like, not everyone has to be, you know, David Wojnarowicz or Keith Haring. Like, you know, people have. People got to do what they got to do. I can't judge them. I did then I was pissed off because my piece got pulled out and I wasn't thrilled that I was not a nobody anymore. I was pissed off that my piece got banned and I had it in my studio and I still own the piece and that's fine. And I had some opportunities through that to be in a couple of group shows, most notably at Morris Healy Gallery, that then became Thomas Healey Gallery. And that's where I did my first two commercial art shows. And I was able over the course of the next five years to really spend less time as a handyman, window display guy and become more of a full time artist like I am now. Although there is one day of the year, and if you ask me on that day and I won't tell you what it is, I will still take a welding job.

Interviewer (42:52)

Okay, so it's just a one day of the year on the calendar. Is the same calendar day every year.

Tom Sachs (42:56)

It's different for everyone in every year. And if you ask me and it's the wrong day, you're banned for life.

Interviewer (43:02)

Okay, glad you know.

Tom Sachs (43:04)

Fortunately, I've set those terms for your listeners.

Dan Rubenstein (43:09)

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Interviewer (44:14)

In the book, you say when at a bricolage station, and maybe only then am I at peace. Can you describe what bricolage is in the context of your art and sort of how you and your team and your studio create it and why it brings you sort of that much peace and joy?

Tom Sachs (44:34)

In sports, people talk about the zone or the flow state. My zone or flow state is when I'm making stuff. And there are a lot of different processes that I engage in. And the one that I'm. I'm the world's best artist at making Tom Sachs art. I see a lot of good artists out there. Sometimes I look at their art and I was like, oh, I could. I could do their art better. Sometimes I'm like, God, I wish I could. I would never say anything, but sometimes I see something. I'm like, if they would just do it a little bit more like this. And I think that's why people teach, is because they want to indulge those things. I would never tell someone what to do. And of course, I hate it when people tell me what to do because they're usually wrong. And when they're right, it's like a gift. But that's, again, one in 365. It's pretty rare. So for me, bricollage is making with available limited resources. It's kind of like, we use this word in the studio. Isru, in situ, resource utilization. And it just means, like, use what you've got to get what you want. And in sculpture, there's a great heritage. Probably the most famous movement is Arte Povera in Italy in the 60s, or even the American or international conceptual art period of 68 to 74. Art with a bunch of rules. These were artists with not a lot of resources, made the best work. You know, for me, it's just building mixed media constructions and. And sometimes with a lot, with more resources. And I've got, like a professional tig welder, like the same kind of welding machine they used for welding airplane parts. I have one here, so I use that and a hot glue gun side by side. And I think that kind of diversity of technique and materials, titanium and cardboard, is what gives the work its resonance for me. And that's the part when I'm at peace. And I'm at peace because it's so fun and rewarding. And it's been like that for many years. Not just now that I have a fancy TIG welder. It was like that when my whole studio fit inside of a little toolbox I only had when I was in England. I had a metal toolbox that could hold everything I owned in one hand. And you could do the same. Philosophical approaches, it's even. It's easier when you have less stuff because you've lost options to choose from.

Interviewer (47:01)

And there's a chapter on cameras where you mention a camera model that you made for your kind of the same model that you made that your dad wanted to buy, and you made it out of clay as a child. And in the chapter, you write that sympathetic magic is a cornerstone of my work. And so what is sympathetic magic? And can anyone practice it?

Tom Sachs (47:22)

Yes, anyone can. And. And. And some of us even do it without knowing we're doing it. But sympathetic magic is in a lot of ways, a lot of ways of describing it, build it, and they will come, make a voodoo doll of your enemy and push pins into them to. To imagine or build a model of their house, of their fort, and burn it down. Visualize the destruction. Or that's sympathetic magic of the first order. The sympathetic magic of the second order is associative magic where, like, you get a lock of someone's hair or, you know, you. You get a guitar that Jimi Hendrix played, or you buy a pair of Air Jordans because you want to be a better basketball player. So you're like, you. Like, you start, at least your feet look like Michael Jordan. And then through that, you can assume his power on some emotional level and channel it and be actually better. And it works. Both of those ways work. The most beautiful form of sympathetic magic I can think of as an ex voto is where you build a model of your ailing limb, like a broken arm, and you bring it to your religious practitioner, prays to it and helps you pray to it so that you believe that you will heal. And if you are sick or injured and you believe that you will never get better, you will never get better. But if you are sick and injured and you believe that you will get better, you might get better. And might is a whole lot better than won't. It's not a guarantee, but it sets you in a positive direction towards making your life the way you want it to be. And like I said before, if you say you're an astronaut. You are one. I learned that at Bennington. Sidney Tillam corrected me and everyone who would come across him and say, I'm an art student. And he'd say, no, you're an artist. You might be 18 years old, but you're an artist now, and we're going to hold you to those standards. And if you don't know who Brancusi is, go to the library or look him up or go on the Internet and look it up. And it's because, like, start now. Start now with what you believe in.

Interviewer (49:42)

And, you know, you've created furniture that's very real and, you know, showing at Salon 94. And you've done shoes with Nike that you can actually purchase. And I believe you just reintroduced a few that will be coming out in September.

Tom Sachs (49:56)

They will be out by the time this comes out. Mars Yard three is out. And also a new shoe that we can't name because we're naming it now, and it will have been named by the time this comes out. Yeah, more stuff's coming.

Interviewer (50:14)

So, I mean, how do you feel about the sort of dividing line between design and art? I mean, do you consider the sneakers you're creating for Nike to be a work of art of yours or a work of design, or do you not care?

Tom Sachs (50:27)

Well, first I would just say that it's not what you can do for Nike, it's what Nike can do for you. The. The shoes, the Mars Yard shoes and then general purpose shoes are the official shoes of the studio. So if you share our values, these are the shoes of the studio. It's like a way of, like, we're a professional sculpture making team and Nike makes shoes for us to make stuff. And you, Dan, and you, dear listeners, are part of our community enough that you've listened this long in this interview that you care enough and you could easily click away. So if you have a body, you're an athlete. And in the shop, we need shoes. So Nike makes our shoes. I don't draw a distinction between a poem, a video, a sculpture, or a painting or a sneaker. It's all sculpture to me. I felt this way for many, many years. I think probably when I saw the first Air Jordans and I saw people fighting over them. And I also saw the power of sympathetic magic of like, wearing. I remember wearing the soccer cleats of my favorite soccer player in high school and, and, and seeing, not seeing and understanding, but understanding without thinking of the power of this. So with the Nike Craft brand, which is General Purpose Shoes, And Mars Yard shoes. The idea is of doing owning less and doing more of, like, taking care of your stuff. Instead of buying 50 sneakers, like throwing your old ones in the washing machine, maybe get a new pair of laces and a sock liner for it. And showing that they're clean, but they're worn, or they're worn, showing that they're worn but they're clean and that they have a life and that their stains and tears and things are all scars of labor. And that beauty isn't limited to youth and to new, but beauty is also linked and represented by experience. And we know this through our love of genes that have holes in them. And we criminalize this activity by buying acid washed genes or genes that have holes pre made into them because we are culturally appropriating the value of labor. We're saying, I worked hard. Look at the holes in my jeans versus buying a new pair of jeans and wearing them for a decade and earning those holes and having a greater connection with your jeans and showing the truth of that. I'm not saying it's deserving of prison time, but it is a sort of morally criminal act to represent that you did something when you didn't do it. There's a rule in skateboarding photography. You can't publish a picture of a trick unless the person lands it.

Interviewer (53:30)

And, you know, a lot of your work, especially the earlier work, you know, skewered sort of luxury labels and brought to light the sort of artificiality of luxury and what it all means. But that world has changed so much. Like, do you think a lot of that you could do today? Because what you kind of did before was almost like satire. But now that so many luxury brands are such lifestyle, you know, creations that it wouldn't be weird to do a Chanel chainsaw in a weird way, like, it used to be transgressive. Or if, like, Chanel did skis, that would be like, ooh, it's so, so weird and new. But now, I mean, obviously you took it to an extreme, but I mean, it's not. It has changed. And that world has changed a lot in the past 30 years. Is that accurate, do you think?

Tom Sachs (54:25)

I think that's a good. Yeah. I mean, I would say that, like, sure, I skewered Chanel with Chanel guillotine or Prada toilet or whatever, but at the same time that I was, like, skewering them, I was also amplifying them and admiring them like I was working at Barney's. I wanted Hermes. I remember I went down to Canal street. And I bought a fake air mask belt, and I wore it to a party. And then I saw someone at the party with a real armrest belt, and I, like, saw how fake mine looked. And I pulled out my sweater and put it over. I don't want anyone to see it because I was so embarrassed, because I aspired, like everyone else who shops on Canal, to have this expensive thing that I didn't have the resources to buy. So at the same time as I was attacking it, I was also admiring it. And I, you know, I. In. In college, in my punk rock days, I was really against something like. Like Chanel. But when I moved to New York and I was working at Barney's, I started meeting people who were gorgeous wearing Chanel and Alaia. And when I discovered how epic Alaia could be, I kind of fell in love with. With how fashion could really. I fell in love with women who were beautifully dressed, whereas before that, I only wanted, like, filthy punk girls. I was, like, turned off by that. And what happened was that my horizons were expanded. My friends were incredibly well dressed, men and women. And I went to check out Patricia Fields, and there was a sales associate there named Lonnie Barnes, and I tried on a pair of reflective Scotchlite jeans, and they were really expensive, like $300. Something was up, but they were so cool. I'd try them on and he was like, just keep them. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, they look good on you. And Lonnie, like, God bless him, kind of set me on a road for hybridization of simultaneously loving fashion and hating it, or hating it first, maybe, and then loving it equally. And that duality is a diff, is what makes it art and not propaganda.

Interviewer (56:45)

And do you think that there was a disconnect between how you felt about the art that you were creating and. And what the greater culture or the fashion world proper thought about it. Because when I think about it, there's.

Dan Rubenstein (56:56)

A famous book by Dana Thomas, the.

Interviewer (56:58)

Fashion critic, called How Luxury Lost Its Luster. And your work is on the COVID and it's the McDonald's meal, but it's.

Dan Rubenstein (57:06)

All with Prada logos.

Interviewer (57:07)

And it's like today you would be like, oh, wow, what a cool collab. But, like, maybe back then, someone might be like, oh, fashion has changed so much. You know, was there. Do you think there's a disconnect between.

Dan Rubenstein (57:17)

What you meant to say and what.

Interviewer (57:19)

People thought it was?

Tom Sachs (57:20)

Well, like, I think Dana's book, and I've read it, is. Is half the story. But I think the opposite is equally valid. I think it's both. And I can't speak to people's interpretations because everyone's opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one, but I kind of don't care. I hope that you. In my dream, everyone sees both sides. That's my job as an artist, is to provide that opportunity. But people are going to pick one side and there are very few people. And those are the people who tend to be my friends. See both because we're aligned politically. And I think that's sophistication of it. Those who see how beautiful it looks and those who also see how corrupt and usury it is to say for advertising, to say, hey, get this car and you'll get the girl, or get this dress and you'll get the guy. Or if you drink this, you'll be skinny and then you'll be loved or whatever. Like those values that don't really serve our own sense of self worth, but that amplify external standards of excellence and acceptance is what advertising preys on our weakness. And of course, nothing does that more than Instagram because it's not just there to sell you a car or a dress. It's there to consume your attention and time. You know that it's your. It's your views that have value in that economic structure. And so that it's specifically appealed to, promising, giving a promise that can never be delivered. And whatever part of the limbic part of the brain, like sex or survival or caring for the young that is.

Interviewer (59:10)

And obviously, you know, speaking of astronauts and believing you're an astronaut, you did, you've done a lot of work with all things NASA related, like rockets and spacesuits and lunar modules and things like that. I think today is. As space exploration has become more privatized and maybe the golden era of NASA is sort of over. Do you think, does it lost some of its appeal to you in 2025, this kind of idea? Or is it really. You just love that period of kind of optimism and big giant design projects the whole world was pinning their hopes on.

Tom Sachs (59:49)

So in September, we just closed our fifth space program, which is Space Program five in the Infinite and Beyond. And it was in Seoul at the Dongdaemon Design Plaza, where artists went to, in this case. But we were going back to Mars. We got sidetracked and ran into a uap, an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. It's kind of like the PC version of ufo.

Interviewer (60:19)

Okay, amazing.

Tom Sachs (60:21)

It's a little more general. So you know that's new names.

Interviewer (60:25)

We need new names.

Tom Sachs (60:27)

Yeah, well, I mean, there's advantages to being more general and to being more specific, you know, These are Gesamtkunswerks. These are total works of art. These are large scale, sort of like performance pieces. Although we have a swear jar. If you say performance, you have to put a euro in a jar. We say live demonstrations of our systems and our space programs. And we've been to the moon and to Mars and Europa and Vesta. And we just had this UAP incident on our fifth mission. And we have full size lemon mission control and spacesuits and everything works. And it's all made out of cardboard and duct tape and plywood. But our spacesuits are sealed, so we really have to pump breathable air into them. And they get hot, so we have to have cooling layers. And we made the only lunar module that stands on its own four legs. In other words, a lot of assholes have made their own lunar module for their high school stage production or treehouse. But there's always a central column. So ours stands on its own four legs. So it's built the way the ones that are on the moon are built. There's a lot of high level of detail. This isn't method acting. This is a way of creating authentic stakes. It's not unrelated to sympathetic magic. If you build all those details, then the experience becomes more real for you. And guess what? I've had multiple invitations to go to space as an astronaut because of my work in the space program. I've been invited to be the artist in residence at Jet Propulsion Laboratories Entry descent landing team. I designed the mission patch. Still really close to the EDL team and spend time at Caltech with those guys when I can and continue to work on future missions together. I think we're all a little frustrated that things didn't go in the direction that they could have. That we haven't gone to Europa yet, which would be really great because then we could really prove that life is on other worlds and finally really kill God and show that science is the religion of our time. I mean, it kind of is, but it just would be really nice. Nail in the coffin of the whole like, God myth. And I mean, we don't know if there's life on Europa, but it's the best chance we have. So, like, the good money is on going there and checking it out, getting an answer. If we find that there isn't life there, that's pretty impressive. But there's a good chance. I mean, we've proven that it's got all the stuff to support life. But the Europa Clipper, that's going there now, it's just going to fly through a plume of the gas that's exposed to space. So I think we might get a little more evidence on that. But it's a slower burn. It's not going to happen in our lifetime because it takes whatever, seven years to get there. So we got to go there, get that, and then build something that can actually land on the surface. We've got designs for the design, reference architecture for how to do it, set up, and it's been for many years. But just organizing the public relations that supports the sense of collective importance that we go there is not lined up. You just have extremists like me and scientists who think it's important, but people just want their starlink, that's more important because it's more immediate. It's hard to justify.

Interviewer (64:09)

And speaking of the grave as my last question. Sorry. This is also the peak existentialist question. You know, as someone who enjoys playing with these realms of consumerism, culture and craft, have you thought about what you want to do with your body after death? Tom Sachs, like mausoleum?

Tom Sachs (64:34)

My body? Like my carcass?

Dan Rubenstein (64:37)

Yeah.

Interviewer (64:37)

Or my body of work, like anything. No, no. You, yourself and your friends, my carcass, sure.

Tom Sachs (64:44)

So Nathan Austen and Mary Fry, who I will do my best to outlive, are authorized to execute my final wishes. My Laura knows what they are. And it's a Viking funeral. Of course. It's a Viking funeral. 50 miles offshore, international waters. Tyler Hayes and I designed the boat. It's a steel boat filled with kerosene that's offshore. 12 of my best friends are on another boat, a fast boat, because 50 miles is far, so they're on, like, a cigarette boat. They launch flaming arrows at the funeral barge until it catches fire. The body, because it's on a steel boat with kerosene, is completely incinerated before it sinks, before it heats up enough that the hull's breached and it sinks. But we need total incineration. And that's why there's kerosene, because it's oily and it burns for a long time before the steel breaches, which also needs to happen, so the whole thing sinks. It's time. It's like an engineering thing. And this is hard because I got a Jewish family and they're going to want it to happen fast. And I don't know how long it's going to take to build this thing. So maybe I'll start building it now. And then the crew of 12 people go back to whatever Pier 29 or wherever they came from and they have to listen to the Pogues and they can only drink Jameson so they get all seasick and drunk and hate me.

Dan Rubenstein (66:13)

Thank you to my guest Tom Sachs, as well as to everyone at Phaidon for making this episode happen. The editor of the Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don't forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, the Grand Tourist curator@thegrandtourist.net and follow me on Instagram danrubenstein and follow the Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Till next season.