EXCLUSIVE: Tom Sachs’ Rocket Factory NFTs Take Off as IRL Art
With help from the accessible art platform Avant Arte, Tom Sachs has turned the Too Darn Hot NFT from his Rocket Factory collection into silkscreen prints.
"I remember when I first met him in 2019, I visited his studio and we discussed doing a print together," Avant Arte co-founder Christian Luiten said. "Three years later, we're collaborating on an insane print — the first print Tom's worked on in 3 years and the first related to the Rocket Factory."
Like the NFT, which is currently housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Too Darn Hot print features the Frankenrocket blasting off with its Cup Noodles-tail, Chanel body, and Trojan nose (it doesn't get any cheekier than a condom brand on a rocket's tip).
Sealed with Sachs' famed signature and an indented stamp, the print also totes a few hidden treasures for NFT heads.
Sachs fans who own UV lights, your time has come. With the tool, a hidden QR code comes to light, providing a link to the LACMA's Too Darn Hot NFT.
Meanwhile, a holographic sticker on the back of the print leads to a second QR code, which authenticates the print and supplies collectors with an on-chain Certificate of Authenticity.
These disguised details aren't only gifts that keep on giving but also authenticate the print as a Sachs original.
Sachs' Too Darn Hot Frankenrocket was the first NFT to be included in a major museum, thanks to LACMA who gladly welcomed the non-fungible token under its wing.
LACMA's acquisition of Sachs' NFT posed as essentially one of the kickoffs to Rocket Factory, which launched in 2021 as a "trans-dimensional manufacturing plant," as defined by Sachs.
Basically, through Rocket Factory, fans create new NFTs from existing ones, resulting in these crossbred — in this case, cross-brand — rocket artworks called "Frankenrockets."
With LACMA showing support and acknowledging Sachs' NFT as art, Sachs gladly returns the favor by donating 40% of proceeds from the Too Darn Hot print sales to LACMA.
It's no secret that Tom Sachs shares a deep love for space, evident with his many exhibitions, Nike collaborations, and even his very own spacecraft.
The Rocket Factory and these accompanying prints — which launch on November 2 on Avant Arte's website for €750 (approx. $747) — simply expand on his admiration for the final frontier and his growing appreciation for the on-chain sphere.
