Delighted to see a little red dot beside my painting 'The Man Who Sold The Moon' @arcadiagallery #fiveandunder show! The Man Who Sold The Moon' is the title of a Robert Heinlein SciFi novel written in 1949 about the first landing and colonisation of the moon, and more broadly, an examination of the corruption of science and exploration by politics and business. The proximate inspiration for the piece was a conversation I had with Barry McArdle, one of the partners in CK Contemporary in San Francisco, who in the seventies lodged a claim with the US land registry to a large chunk of the moon's surface, and then travelled the world wearing a spacesuit and selling lunar real estate for a dollar an acre. He presented me with a certificate of ownership of an acre in the Sea of Tranquillity, and a copy of his autobiography, 'I Sold the Moon'. Perhaps it isn't entirely surprising that he advanced from selling lunar real estate to the art business! Here's his website: http://www.isoldthemoon.com/ My painting, inspired by these stories, is a meditation on technological optimism and the way the moon landings and the 'conquest of space' were turned into political theatre and lucrative business, with little benefit to the population at large. It is also a comment on political hucksterism, the corruption of democratic politics, the selling of illusions, absurd promises, impossible dreams. #artoftheday #artistsofinstagram #conorwalton #irishartist #moonlanding #spacerace #themanwhosoldthemoon #instaart (at Arcadia Contemporary) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1wYlCzoBh-/?igshid=13uvy2w389aob
