A new PBS documentary concludes that Andy Warhol and five other artists contributed sketches that were miniaturized and put on a postage-stamp-sized chip smuggled aboard Apollo 12.


According to USA Today:

"For us, at the time, the moon landing was the most exciting thing that ever happened. The artists just wanted to be part of it," says Myers, one of the six artists, including Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros and John Chamberlain, who made sketches. Representatives of Oldenburg and Chamberlain confirmed to USA TODAY that the artists had contributed to the effort. During the 1960s, Myers was one of hundreds of New York artists working with Bell Labs engineers on the "Experiments in Arts and Technology" program. Wright traces for PBS how the artists' sketches were shrunk onto rectangular half-inch-by-three-quarter-inch ceramic chips by two Bell Labs engineers, now deceased.


The article doesn't mention which sketch is by which artist - and just what that slightly obscene-looking doodle in the upper left-hand corner is supposed to be - but maybe the PBS History Detectives episode, airing June 21, will clear that up.

"The Moon Museum" will be on view at the Tampa Museum of Art from June 18 - August 1, 2010.

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Image by Jade Dellinger