Drake To Help Revive Amusement Park Designed By Basquiat, Hockney, Dalí
Could an entire amusement park double up as an art exhibition? That’s what Austrian artist André Heller tried to achieve when he came up with Luna Luna in 1987.
The famed carnival tapped on some of the world’s most iconic artists—including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Salvador Dalí, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Philip Glass, and Roy Lichtenstein—to design its rides and exhibits. Basquiat, for example, created a Ferris wheel.
According to the New York Times, the event was supposed to bridge the gap between avant-garde artists and the public, and though it proved to be a massive success, financial issues led to its demise, where it has remained for decades.
Now, however, rapper Drake has entered the picture, and is giving US$100 million to get the project up and running again. How exactly did this come to be?
1987: the Viennese artist André Heller opens LUNA LUNA, an avant-garde carnival with works by Basquiat, Haring, Scharf, Delaunay, Lichtenstein, Dalí and more in Hamburg, Germany
— Joe Coscarelli (@joecoscarelli) November 17, 2022
35 years later...
Drake ??? https://t.co/akSzEsy0Fv pic.twitter.com/iR5BVdZ7Pm
As per the newspaper, Michael Goldberg, founder of Something Special studios, had chanced upon the story of Luna Luna back in 2019, which he brought up to the superstar’s creative firm DreamCrew.
Anthony Gonzales, a partner in the company, said that within 30 seconds, everyone was “all in.” Drake said he felt the carnival was “a unique and special way to experience art,” and liked that it focused on “bringing people together.”
As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, following months of negotiations, Heller agreed to hand over his dream to Drake and his team, thereby beginning the restoration project in Los Angeles.
An American tour of the festival is scheduled for fall 2023, with an international tour slated to take place the year after. Some of the original exhibits will remain as part of the show, while newly-commissioned works will join the ranks.
Before it sets off to tour the globe, the original Luna Luna book will be republished to tell the story of how the original idea started, and a documentary will be made to chart the entire process of its restoration.
[via Smithsonian Magazine and Complex, cover image via Michael Turner | Dreamstime.com and Vasilis Ververidis | Dreamstime.com]
