“Forget About Mars. We’re Changing Direction.”

-Tom Sachs

Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), the Republic of Korea’s landmark cultural campus, and the world’s largest three-dimensional amorphous structure, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, is pleased to be the landing site for world renowned sculptor Tom Sachs’s fifth mission to the cosmos, Space Program: Infinity.

Since 2007, when Sachs first actualized his ideas for a moon landing in the form of an intricate and inimitable bricolage world, complete with a full-scale Apollo-era Landing Excursion Module (LEM) and a space systems demonstration to showcase the urgency, complexity and ritual of the event, the artist has committed himself to evolving and growing his capabilities and his toolkit for deep space exploration.

From his maiden voyage to the moon (Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles), Sachs subsequently fitted his astronauts to land on and gather samples from Mars (2012, Park Avenue Armory, New York), conduct a sculpture-driven ancient tea ceremony on Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter (2017, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco), and harvest rare minerals on Vesta, the brightest and closest asteroid to earth (2021, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg).

Space Program: Infinity is the first of Sachs’ missions to directly explore course correction, surprise extra-terrestrial encounters, and the parallel risks and rewards of journeying into the eternity of the universe and the vastness of the mind.

“A microscope and a telescope are pretty much the same things;

inner and outer space both provide immense challenges,” Sachs says. “My astronauts have everything they need for survival either way--a lifeline made from sculpture.”

Viewers will enter Space Program: Infinity by passing through the Robert Irwin Scrim Clean Air Room (RISCAR), cleansing themselves of earthly impurities, and continue through a maze-like series of purpose-built rooms housing artifacts from previous space missions and more than a dozen new works, including Faith, a multi-media installation and experience whose participants will confront ideas about their identities, their relationships, and their existence.

“Those of you who reach the end,” Sachs says, “will be consecrated into the Hall of the Immortals.”