Tom Sachs One in a Million, 2022

The painting One in a Million (2022) is related to Tom Sachs’ Rocket Factory project, a ‘transdimensional manufacturing plant’ which allows people to assemble their own rockets as NFTs with an option for the artist to create and launch a corresponding rocket sculpture. Each of the rockets is composed from three branded components in different colourways, in this case referencing NASA, Campbell’s tomato soup and Hermès. In contrast to rockets with unified branding, he calls these disparate combinations Frankenrockets. ‘The 30 brands we chose for the Rocket Factory are all deliberate,’ explains Sachs. ‘Brands form our sense of tribal belonging.’

The artist has long been fascinated with space exploration, as well as NASA’s role as an incubator for pioneering new technologies, and has realised an entire body of space-related works. His latest body of work on this theme, the Rocket Paintings span the physical and the virtual, referencing his NFT project but standing as independent artworks in their own right.