The sculptures and paintings in Tom Sachs’ latest exhibition reflect his fascination with consumer culture and the enduring charms of work. Sachs recently sat down with Slate’s Jacob Weisberg for a freewheeling interview about everything from why he reveres James Brown to how he became obsessed with space exploration.

Here’s the second of three segments from Sachs’ interview, the latest in our series “Conversations With Slate.”

You can watch the first part of the Sachs interview here, and look for another excerpt in the days ahead, along with an audio podcast of the entire conversation.