Tom Sachs Guide

Tom Sachs s studio, nestled in New York City s Lower East Side, is a universe all its own. After thirty years spent in the space, every inch of it bears the artist s style, characterized by embracing the imperfections that reveal his process. The quintessential Sachs piece is a ceramic vessel: handmade, emblazoned with the NASA logo a recurring motif in his art and scored with thumbprints and a patched crack. Tom Sachs rose to prominence in the mid-1990s with his loving re-creations of consumerist icons. He made representations of McDonald s meals from Hermes and Tiffany packaging and rebuilt Knoll furniture from phone books and duct tape. Throughout Sachs s career, his studio has engaged in a process of self-documentation, using not just its artwork but its internal codes of conduct as material for short films. Today, his studio bridges the worlds of fine art and fashion through active participation in both. In the age of mass production and planned obsolescence, Sachs s work speaks to the beauty of handicrafts and bricolage. The artist himself proudly proclaims many of his works to be fucked up, and he elevates and celebrates each sculpture s unique scars. Sachs s work is closely tied to manual labour.