Haute Bricolage: Tom Sachs in conversation with Vito Schnabel and Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Tom Sachs is a Space Age pragmatist, the Bob Dylan of bricolage, a satanic ceramicist and master of tea ceremonies. Somewhere between a post-apocalyptic carpenter and a charming rocket scientist waiting for a rover to land on some distant star, Sachs invents and reinvents the world in which he lives. His studio is a monastic, near sovereign state where plywood and foamcore are the chief export, and work and pleasure are prescribed in regimented doses according to strict philosophical codes or "bullets." Sachs, who originally studied architecture and spent one year working in Frank Gehry's Los Angeles studio, has spent his career remixing and sampling objetcs of our modern and contemporary landscape. From works, like "Chanel Guillotine Breakfast Nook" (1998), which exemplifies the quotidian nature of furniture and makes the prospect of a public beheading more banal than brunch, to fully functioning rifles made out of recycled materials, to a Chevy Caprice police car decked out with burglary tools, Sachs highlights our obsequious obsession with luxury, sex and violence. Lately, Sachs has been exploring themes of national idenitity and surfing with gallerist, Vito Schnabel. We got a chance to catch up with them in New York.