Jeff Koons, the Moon, and the Delta.
A stainless steel plaque now orbits the Moon. Etched with Jeff Koons’ Moon Phases, it is the first officially recognized artwork placed on the lunar surface—a gesture the artist calls a “symbol of human potential.” The paradox is: no one may ever see it again.
Bolted to a dormant lander, Koons’ sculpture has no audience but the stars which raises a question as old as the caves at Lascaux: If art exists beyond human perception, does it still matter?
The Paradox of Permanence
Moon Phases (left) by Jeff Koons. Aboard the lunar lander (right).
Engineered to outlast civilizations, Koons’ artwork is now in the Moon’s airless vacuum. It may endure for millennia—long after Earth’s archives have decayed. But who will get to participate?
Much like the locked chambers of the Vatican, or the silent vaults of aristocrats—the moon will preserve Koons’ art, yes, but at what cost? Moon Phases is extreme: a work of art severed from the world, existing not just beyond touch, or beyond the horizon, but beyond witness, its value now looping inward. It is a conversation between the artist and the void.
The Delta’s Universe
In the Northeast Louisiana Delta, art obeys a different law—not to defy time, but to unfold within it, living through renewal. Hand-stitched quilts, gospel music and Southern Blues, murals weathered by sun and rain. These forms are shaped by memory, touch, repetition, and renewal—the very things a vacuum cannot hold.
Here, we value art that not only survives but also connects. While Koons’ gesture is undoubtedly impressive; a monumental achievement, it’s a different cosmology. Ours holds the ephemeral as sacred, alive in a universe all our own.
The Delta as Witness
Consider the old thought experiment: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it…
Koons’ Moon sculpture is the tree. The Moon is the forest. The Delta is the sound. Can you hear it? Are you present? We exist because you are here to receive, to listen, to remember, to carry forward. Perhaps the real question isn’t whether we’ll blast off to the moon but rather, whether what we do is landing in the here and now. You be the judge.
If art’s highest calling is to be eternal, Koons has secured his immortality. But if art’s purpose is to live in us, to be shared and transform us, then the Delta and its art have always been immortal in ways Moon-bound steel can never be. Come check us out.
We’re here. We’re close. Feet on the ground and reaching for the stars.
