Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, accompanied by eight unnamed artists, will be the first tourist to travel around the Moon
Yusaku Maezawa and Elon Musk. Source: Yusaku Maezawa / twitter
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has announced its plans to launch Japanese billionaire and fashion magnate Yusaku Maezawa and a team of eight artists into space as part of the #dearMoon project. The trip will take about a week, the Art Newspaper Russia reports.
The rocket with tourists on board will come as close as 201 kilometres to the Moon. It will be the first human trip to Earth's satellite since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
Musk says Maezawa, who has been appointed “host curator”, paid enough to book all ten seats on the Big Falcon Rocket designed to explore and colonise other planets. SpaceX has been working on BFR since 2012.
During a press conference at the SpaceX factory in California on September 17, Maezawa, who made headlines last year when he bought Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1983) for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s, was wearing in a Comme des Garçons T-shirt with a portrait of the artist. He said: “What if Basquiat had gone to space and seen the moon up close? What wonderful masterpieces would he have created? Just thinking about it now gets my heart racing!”
The collector plans to invite from six to eight artists (visual artists, sculptors, filmmakers, architects or fashion designers) to join him on the trip. After they return to Earth, they will be expected to make a work based on their experience. “Those masterpieces will inspire the dreamer in all of us,” Maezawa added.
Yusaku Maezawa, the founder of Zozotown fashion retail website, is known for big acquirings at auctions in the past few years. He also runs the Tokyo-based Contemporary Art Foundation and plans to open a contemporary art museum in Chiba to display his collection.
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