A VISIT TO LUNA LUNA, A RECENTLY OPENED, HIGHLY ANTICIPATED MONUMENT TO HIGH-ART DIVERSIONS

by Sarah Fensom, brutjournal’s U.S.A. West Coast bureau chief

Recently, at the end of December 2023, Luna Luna, a conceptual amusement park developed by the Austrian artist André Heller, opened in a sprawling warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. Heller initially designed and presented this art-based project in the form of an interactive installation in Hamburg, in the former West Germany, in 1987. Back then, the park was open to the public for a brief period before its contents were packed up and stored away for more than 35 years.

Today, in L.A., Heller’s ambitious art project has become a ticketed commercial attraction featuring some 30 large-scale works the artist had commissioned years ago from such well-known modern and contemporary artists as Sonia Delaunay, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dalí, and Kenny Scharf. There is also a pavilion designed by David Hockney, a carousel created by Keith Haring, and a Ferris wheel imagined by Jean-Michel Basquiat — all they’re all still in working order.