The Apollo Prophecies

The Apollo Prophecies depicts, in one extrava­gantly long duotone panorama, an imagined expedition of 1960s American astronauts. Landing on the moon, they discover a lost mission of Edwardian-era astronauts who greet them as long-awaited gods. By present­ing wildly inventive staged photographs as evidence of events that never happened, the Apollo Prophecies playfully questions the con­cept of historical truth. Part Jules Verne, part Stanley Kubrick, the panoramic moonscape literally unfolds in multiple episodes that intermingle artifacts from the fearless era of early-20th-century exploration with space age gadgetry.\n\n\nAs in their previous books—Scotlandfuturebog (2000) and City of Salt (2005), both published by Aperture—Kahn and Selesnick have con­jured up a completely self-contained world with its own history and mythology. Using digital photography, the artists combine real-life locations, miniature models, and full-scale props of their own devising to produce a dra­matic narrative played out by space-suit-clad astronauts (and similarly clad monkeys and elephants). The same characters, most portrayed by the artists themselves, recur numerous times within the panorama. This use of narrative sequencing, often seen in early Renaissance frescoes, combines with the prophetic Blakeian tone to reinforce the conceit of astronauts as ancient gods, descending from the heavens. This is an Apollo lunar mission both dreamlike yet oddly familiar—and utterly convincing.\n\n\nIncluded in this ingenious package is a 16-page booklet with a mind-bending narrative illustrated with four-color mixed-media drawings.\n\n\n\nNICHOLAS KAHN and RICHARD SELESNICK, born in New York City and London, respec­tively, have been collaborating since 1986. They have exhibited internationally, and their work is in the collections of the Addi­son Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mas­sachusetts; Brooklyn Museum; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as many private collections. Residents of the New York region, they are represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York; Pepper Gallery, Boston; Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles; Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona; Irvine Contemporary, Washington, D.C.; and Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago.