Since childhood, sculptor Tom Sachs has been building boomboxes. "I hooked my Sony Walkman up to a set of mini speakers and velcroed them to a block of scrap plywood. It was a clusterfuck of wires," he says in the press release for Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective 1999–2015, the artist's first-ever exhibition in Texas. For the show, which also includes a number of other sculptures and installations from the artist who previously imagined a trip to Mars inside of the Park Avenue Armory, Sachs created a series of working ceramic boomboxes that demonstrate his ongoing love for music, and for sculpting the systems that blare it.
"In 8th grade woodshop, I made a box for the whole mess out of pine," Sachs continues, describing his longtime involvement with building boomboxes. "It had a knob to hang the headphones that was made out of a broomstick.” The show features a total of 15 sculptures that range from Miffy Mountain, a large-scale bronze sculpture of the beloved children's book character, and battery tower "Duralast," a bronze rendering of a stack of car batteries. In addition, Sachs has also curated a number of playlists from pop icons and friends to be blasted through his boomboxes.
“I have worked with Tom Sachs on several projects in the past, and I am very excited to introduce his work to Austin [Texas],” explains Louis Grachos, Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director of The Contemporary Austin. “Like Austin, Tom takes his eccentricities seriously. The maverick spirit of self-reliance and attention to hand-crafted precision that come through in his work will keenly resonate with our audiences in Central Texas and beyond.”
Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective 1999–2015 will be on display at The Contemporary Austin from January 24 through April 19, 2015. Click here to learn more.
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