Tom Sachs
Moon, 2018
Oil, latex, synthetic polymer paint on plywood
35h x 35w x 3 3/4d in
© Tom Sachs Photo by Stefan Altenburger Image Courtesy Tom Sachs Studio and Vito Schnabel Gallery
“The most powerful tool you have is your subconscious.”
Anyone closely following Tom Sachs’ career should know about his Ten Bullets. For those who don’t, it’s a set of rules that the American artist developed for his assistants in 2012 to ensure order, productivity, and zero defects for creating works at his New York City studio. Such rules include “Work to Code” where assistants are ordered to build works off a preexisting concept, and perhaps the most well-known rule, “Always Be Knolling,” that instructed team members to place tools back to where they belong in a 90-degree angle.
Shortly after Ten Bullets was produced, filmmaker Van Neistat, a close friend of Sachs, translated the studio guide into a film. Seven years later, the duo launched Paradox Bullets, short film that offers contradictory rules to the initial directive. “Ten Bullets is about the rules of the studio whereas Paradox Bullets is about creative problem solving, which at times doesn’t make sense,” Tom Sachs told HYPEBEAST.