Artistic amusement park
Luna Luna, an amusement park created in 1987 under the leadership of Austrian artist André Heller, is located in the cultural center The Shed, in the ultra-modern Hudson Yards district, west of Manhattan. Until January 5, visitors will be able to admire an entrance portico by Sonia Delaunay, a Ferris wheel created by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a carousel by Keith Haring, a diamond dome by Salvador Dalí, the façade of an ice cream palace designed by Roy Lichtenstein or a multicolored pavilion by David Hockney. You can no longer ride the attractions due to their fragility and current safety regulations, but admission is still expensive: 44 dollars per adult and 35 per child (42 and 33 euros). As well as the merchandising sold online (288.95 euros per vintage t-shirt designed by Keith Haring), going backwards compared to the initial project.
power of attraction
In the original exhibition catalogue, André Heller laments that “ “an amusement park is mistakenly considered less serious than an exhibition at the Pompidou Centre.” His ambition was to create a space where contemporary art, encountering the atmosphere of a fairground, would become less elitist. Its name refers to the popular Luna Parks, born in the United States at the beginning of the 19th century.my century. Luna Luna was also presented as an innovative space of freedom. A chapel designed by André Heller allowed everyone to marry whoever they wanted, at a time when homosexual marriage was prohibited. The park opened in the summer of 1987 in Hamburg, Germany, in a former deportation zone chosen by its instigator, the son of a Holocaust survivor. It attracts 30,000 visitors.
Texas Isolation
After only two months of operation and despite the success, the park ran into the conservatism of public authorities, also chilled by the cost of the project. The city of Vienna, which was going to acquire it, gave it up for political reasons. The initially planned European tour is also cancelled. In 1990, André Heller, in financial trouble, decided to sell the attractions for $6 million to the Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation, which wanted to display them in San Diego, California. But a dispute broke out over the rights to the works and the price of admission to the park. After years of legal proceedings, the foundation was forced to complete the purchase, but Luna Luna, a now poisoned project, ended up stored in a Texas warehouse, overrun by armadillos and rattlesnakes.
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