After Sitting in Storage for More Than Three Decades, an Art Amusement Park Is Finally Going On Tour

Walls and a carousel designed by Keith Haring. All images courtesy of Phaidon

In the summer of 1987, a carnival like no other popped up for thirteen weeks on a public green in Hamburg, Germany. Walking through a gate featuring an oversized painting by Sonia Delaunay, visitors entered the world of Luna Luna, an amusement park brimming with rides and kiosks designed by some of the most recognizable names in 20th century art history like David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and Salvador Dalí, to name a few. Altogether, thirty-five artists were invited to create new works for the fairground, which was slated for a global tour, including a Ferris wheel by Jean-Michel Basquiat and a carousel by Keith Haring.

Luna Luna saw nearly a quarter of a million visitors in its first—and only—summer. A change of ownership after its initial installation trapped the project in a legal battle, and it was instead locked away in storage. It was more than three decades before it was seen again. In 2022, creative agency DreamCrew organized to buy the contents of the original presentation, restore it, and launch a multi-city tour starting in 2024. To mark this new chapter, Phaidon has also re-issued Luna Luna: The Art Amusement Park, a book first published in 1987 that includes numerous photographs and documentation along with cover drawings commissioned by the artists.

At Luna Luna, art was for all. The book’s author, Austrian artist and curator André Heller, described that the ethos behind the project was that art “should come in unconventional guises and be brought to those who might not ordinarily seek it out in more predictable settings.” The artist-designed environment was an opportunity to imagine a kind of art utopia, drawing on the nostalgic popularity of amusement parks as places of entertainment and escape for people of all ages. DreamCrew aims to pick up where the original edition left off, evolving and incorporating new commissions from innovative and influential artists working today.

While the components of the park are currently being restored in Los Angeles, you can grab a copy of the book on Bookshop. Find more information on Luna Luna’s website, and follow on Instagram for updates about the upcoming tour.

 

Keith Haring painting the carousel

An overview of Luna Luna (1987)

Visitors outside a ride designed by David Hockney

Entrance gate featuring work by Sonia Delaunay

A performer in a moon costume in front of a design by Roy Lichtenstein

Ferris wheel designed by Jean-Michel Basquiat

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A Visit to Third Man Records Reveals the Remarkably Analog Process of Cutting Vinyl Records

How do our favorite songs make their way into vinyl records? The team over at WIRED visits Third Man Pressing in Detroit to document the particularly labor-intensive production process. From adding the finicky lacquer coating to etching the matrix number by hand, the undertaking requires at least 14 steps before the album is packed and shipped, and each record passes through numerous sets of hands on the production floor. As the music industry becomes increasingly digital, the cutting process remains remarkably analog. “Vinyl is in the real world. It’s not something that exists only on your computer or your phone. It’s three-dimensional,” says one of the pressing plant’s engineers.

Watch the video above for a tour of the facility and insight into the manual parts of the process behind each album. You also might enjoy this DIY engraver for homemade vinyl. (via Kottke)

 

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The 2023 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest Dives into the Stunning, Heartbreaking Lives of Aquatic Creatures

Image © Gregory Sherman/UPY2023. All images shared with permission

Dedicated to spotlighting the most vibrant, awe-inspiring aquatic organisms, this year’s Underwater Photographer of the Year competition centers on the mammals, fish, and plants occupying the world’s oceans and seas. The 2023 contest garnered more than 6,000 submissions from photographers in 72 countries, many of which document the striking scenes of life below the surface: stingrays glide along the rippled sands in the Cayman Islands, an elephant plunges its trunk into the waters off the coast of Thailand, and an orca gracefully dives into a school of fish near Norway.

While some photos highlight life at its most energetic and vibrant, others focus on the heartbreaking impacts of pollution and the climate crisis, more broadly. One image shows a humpback whale as it dies of starvation because its tailfin has been trapped and broken by buoys and ropes. “Taking this photograph was the saddest moment I’ve experienced in the ocean,” said the photographer Alvaro Herrero Lopez-Beltran. “Especially because I have spent so much time with humpbacks underwater, experiencing eye contact, interactions, and seeing how the whales are such intelligent and sentient beings. The photo is a reflection of how our oceans are suffering, the product of man’s selfishness and lack of responsibility.”

See some of the winning photos below, and find the full collection on the contest’s site.

 

Image © Andy Schmid/UPY2023

Image © Shane Gross/UPY2023

Image @ Kat Zhou/UPY2023

Image © Suliman Alatiqi/UPY2023

Image © Theo Vickers/UPY2023

Image © Malcolmnimmo/UPY2023

Image © Kirsty Andrews/UPY2023

Image © Alvaro Herrero Lopez-Beltran/UPY2023

Image © Simon Lorenz/UPY2023

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Memory and Knowledge Intertwine in Chiharu Shiota’s Immersive String Installations

All images by Charles Roussel, courtesy of Galerie Templon, shared with permission

In Signs of Life, a dense installation of knotted and wound string fills much of Galerie Templon’s New York space. The work of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota (previously), the solo show transforms the gallery into a monochromatic labyrinth of intricate mesh that ascends from floor to ceiling. Shiota considers the multivalent meaning of the web, from the structure of neural networks within the human brain to the digital realm today’s world relies on.

One of the works features bulging cylinders and dangling threads in red, while another white structure traps numerous book pages within its midst. Created during a two-week period, Shiota envisions the installation as connecting personal memory and the collection of knowledge. “I always thought that if death took my body, I wouldn’t exist anymore,” she says. “I’m now convinced that my spirit will continue to exist because there is more to me than a body. My consciousness is connected to everything around me, and my art unfolds by way of people’s memory.” The show also includes previously unseen drawings and sculptures, many of which contain quotidian objects that prompt questions about how items become meaningful, sentimental, and precious with use.

Signs of Life is on view through March 9. You can find more from Shiota on her site and Instagram.

 

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Vintage Ephemera Backdrops Mark Powell’s Intimate Ballpoint Pen Drawings

All images © Mark Powell, shared with permission

From playing cards and posters to envelopes and postcards scrawled with notes, the untraditional canvases holding Mark Powell’s artworks are tapestries of memories and experiences past. The Brighton-based artist (previously) sutures scraps of vintage ephemera and draws in ballpoint pen, rendering intimate portraits, birds, and scenes brimming with emotion in realistic detail. Some of his most recent works include monochromatic etchings that capture a heron’s fine, wispy feathers and a diptych of hands, two softly grasping a tulip and another wrapped taught in a rope.

Powell shares glimpses into his process and studio on Instagram, and you can find originals and prints in his shop.

 

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A Staggering 3.32 Billion Celestial Objects Dot an Enormous New Image of the Milky Way

A detail image of the larger composite. DECaPS2/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA Image processing: M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

A massive new composite released earlier this year reveals a confounding number of stars in the Milky Way. An international collaboration gathered from multiple telescopes at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the stunning work captures a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects across 130 degrees of the night sky—for context, the NSF’s NOIRLab team, which is responsible for the 21,400-image composite, shares that this stretch “equates to 13,000 times the angular area of the full moon.”

Requiring about 260 hours of observation, this new release follows data shared in 2017, although its breadth is far greater and allows for a complete 360-degree panoramic view. The full image shown below highlights the Milky Way’s vibrant band containing most of the stellar objects, while the detailed crop above captures an extraordinarily concentrated area. Researchers said about the density in a statement:

While this profusion of stars and dust makes for beautiful images, it also makes the galactic plane challenging to observe. The dark tendrils of dust seen threading through this image absorb starlight and blot out fainter stars entirely, and the light from diffuse nebulae interferes with any attempts to measure the brightness of individual objects. Another challenge arises from the sheer number of stars, which can overlap in the image and make it difficult to disentangle individual stars from their neighbors.

In addition to the standalone images, astronomers also released an interactive version for those interested in exploring specific locations and details within the celestial expanse. (via Kottke)

 

DECaPS2/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/E. Slawik Image processing: M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

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Interview: Kate MccGwire On Discerning Duality, Connecting with Nature, and Making Art in the Belly of a Dutch Barge

Shown above is “EVACUATE” (2010), mixed-media installation with game feathers, 120 x 400 x 350 centimeters. Photo by Jonty Wilde. All images © Kate MccGwire, shared with permission

Growing up on the Norfolk Broads, a network of waterways in the eastern lobe of England that are mostly navigable by boat, Kate MccGwire explored the area’s wetlands and observed wildlife that would set in motion an artistic practice centered in nature. The artist is known for her site-specific installations and serpentine sculptures that incorporate thousands of bird feathers into otherworldly specimens that writhe, squish, and spill.

Often there is an obfuscation of what we know to be real and a shift that allows a sort of reverie and suspension of reality, and due to the convincing placement of the feathers over natural undulating forms, the impression that it could be real, that it could move, flow, and uncoil. —Kate MccGwire

MccGwire speaks in this interview about the tensions and dualities between containment and movement, attraction and revulsion, and nature and the self.

Read the interview.

 

“LIMINAL” (2019), mixed media with goose feathers in a bespoke cabinet, 76 x 57 x 50 centimeters. Photo by JP Bland

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