Drake invests $100 million to restore theme park designed by the 20th century’s greatest artists
Imagine a playground designed by the wild creative minds of Salvador Dalí, Philip Glass, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Roland Toper and many more—that is exactly what Luna Luna was. Now, Drake has invested $100 million to bring this dream back to life.
The park is the brainchild of Austrian artist Andé Heller. In 1987, he looked to create the ultimate carnival by curating the most creative minds in his field and asking them to develop a sort of real-life fantasy world.
He tasked these artists with making the wonderful Luna Luna into a “bridge between the so-called avant-garde – the artists who were a little snobbish sometimes and didn’t connect with the masses – and the so-called normal people” like a Dr Suess utopia.
Naturally, the theme park was one of those ideas that proved too good to be true. Shortly after opening in Hamburg, Germany, it fell on difficult financial times and had to be packed up and placed into storage. With his $100 million investment, Drake is looking to kickstart the restoration.
Drake said in a statement: “When I first heard about Luna Luna I was blown away. It’s such a unique and special way to experience art. This is a big idea and opportunity that centres around what we love most: bringing people together.”
Now, the mission statement for the park comes twinkling into life: “The first-ever art amusement park, Luna Luna invited over thirty of the era’s most dazzling artists to design rides, games, and other fairground attractions in the summer of 1987. Now thirty-five years after its Hamburg debut, Luna Luna is making an electrifying return, soon embarking on a global tour with artists old and new.”
This surrealist art exhibition is set to hopefully hit the road again in 2023 with an American tour planned followed by an international lark thereafter. Heller’s fantasy of creating a “travelling terrain of modern art” in the ancient world of the fairground is set to become a reality once more.
