With this work I claim the first artwork on the moon. It was not Paul Van Hoeydonck who did that, but me – together with Neil Armstrong. We placed an installation on the moon in 1969. I have added the evidence. We installed, together, the American flag and a “commemorative plate.” Since Duchamp – or Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, if you prefer – everything is art; it’s a simplification, but the point stands. Armstrong, in this work, is the performing artist; I am the conceiver, the one who gave him the right instructions. As proof, I requested a signed photograph of the entire crew, which I also possess.

For some time I have been trying, through letters, to persuade people to acknowledge me in this, but it has turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I know that even before Apollo 11, and before the American flag and the commemorative plate, a Russian capsule had already crashed there, but I leave it to others to claim that as the first artwork. To appropriate my thinking here would, in that case, be rather petty.