[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s LA Art blog features the world’s first “art amusement park” – Luna Luna Forgotten Fantasy.
Picture the 20th century and the heavy hitters who shaped the art world of the time. Imagine Basquiat, Dalí, Delaunay, Haring, Hockney, and Lichtenstein all had an art exhibition together. Okay, now imagine that this exhibition was a carnival. But an art carnival! No, this isn’t some caffeine-fueled AI pipedream, this actually happened. The world’s first “art amusement park” was curated by André Heller in 1987, and featured in Hamburg, Germany at a popup fairground. Oh yeah, and Miles Davis and Philip Glass gave Heller permission to play their music.
Are you ready for this to get a little more weird (in the best of ways)? Drake, Canadian rap star/pop star was the one to inject $100 million into exhuming this Luna Luna Forgotten Fantasy. While almost a quarter million visitors frequented Luna Luna in 1987, the theme park lost funding. So off the exhibition went into 44 shipping containers, destination, Texas. Through Drake’s media company, DreamCrew, Heller’s park was brought to Los Angeles. This is the first of many planned stops as Luna Luna begins its tour.
Nested within a huge two-warehouse bay, Luna Luna was resurrected in Los Angeles in a near facsimile of the layout in Hamburg, Germany.
While warehouse spaces can feel commercial and an “art amusement park” seems slanted for the social media influencers of today, Luna Luna wasn’t gimmicky. Luna Luna seemed like a massive art exhibition which blended art movements, generations, and disciplines.
While you couldn’t ride the Keith Haring merry-go-rounds, nor the Basquiat Ferris Wheel (yes, I said that), you could enter the Dalí mirrored funhouse dome for a nominal upgrade in the experience.
Luna Luna’s original location, Hamburg, was intentional. Not only was Luna Luna meant as an inaugural immersive experience that combined the traditionally high-brow with the low, but it was meant to stand as a symbol of anti-discrimination and to fight against antisemitism. Heller’s own father was detained by Nazis in World War II (WWII), and Hamburg was a former deportation site during WWII.
As a postwar project, Luna Luna remains hyper-relevant today. The dim lighting which mimics the carnival at dusk, helps us filter enough of the world’s visual noise, so that we may focus on what is beautiful and priority in this world.
Luna Luna: https://lunaluna.com/
Next Stop: Announced Soon