When You Speak of Luna Luna, Don’t Forget the Passing Gas
Only in L.A. have I seen a museum that has only banana things. And there’s one with bunny things. Tourists may have heard about the surfboard museum, or the neon art museum and even the one where they show gruesome scenes of death. But now, Luna Luna is resurrected.
By Mike Szy
In journalism there’s a tradition that gets lost with traditional storytelling, where you build up to the most exciting part. See, in journalism you’re supposed to start with the best part first, and if you don’t, the expression is “you’re burying the lead.”
You may have heard about the very exciting art installation that was uncovered after being lost for decades and reassembled in a warehouse in downtown L.A.
I have at least a dozen friends who went to this exhibit called Luna Luna and have even told me about their experience in great detail. I’ve read articles about it and explored the website.
Some artists I love are featured: Salvador Dali, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and of course local boy David Hockney.
But in all the explanations, in all the articles, in all the blog posts I’ve seen about Luna Luna, no one talks about the musical farts! It’s almost as if there’s a conspiracy of silence about the gaseous display of the big butts that toot to Mozart.
So imagine my surprise when wandering through this rather quiet warehouse downtown near the Sixth Street Bridge — which itself is one of L.A.’s most amazing public art displays — and I see two butts sitting in what looked like a windowsill. Were they paintings? Were they real? Was this pornography?
Then, they started pooting. And, not only loud and melodious farts, but synchronized to classic music, and most obviously Johann Strauss’s “Blue Danube” … Dah-da-da-da-dum Pfft Pfft, Pfft Pfft….
When I saw this video display, I burst out laughing. Not just a giggle or a twitter, but a loud boisterous, howling laugh, and waved my friends over and shouted, “They’re farting to music!”
My outburst certainly was inappropriate for The Louvre or even The Broad, but this museum was in a warehouse. And yet I felt profoundly embarrassed about my reaction. Yet, I couldn’t understand why the other art lovers attending this bizarre art exhibit weren’t also guffawing over this exhibitionist exhibition.
It was hysterical, and certainly nothing like I’ve ever seen in any museum anywhere — and I’ve been to at least three sex museums in Amsterdam.
Luna Luna: The Forgotten Fantasy has an amazing story itself worthy of a documentary. In 1987, it was a small amusement park experience in Hamburg, Germany with 30 renowned artists of the day. An Austrian pop star-turned-artist Andre Heller created the park and planned to take it on the road, but that never happened, and the whimsical, sometimes obscene, pieces of art were packed away in 44 shipping crates and left in Texas for 35 years.
Then, rapper Drake of all people uncovered the collection and recreated it for its resurrection in the City of Angeles. For the past year it’s been displayed and now it’s going on tour like it was meant to long ago.
The section called the “Palace of the Winds” by Manfred Deix features giant cartoonish faces with their pants down excreting gas into other people’s faces. The scenes in the windows are films of the actual performances that took place live in Germany of “specialists” squatting under a sign that said: “Farting all through the night and always with a good crack.”
Certainly other parts of the exhibit are worth nothing. A house of mirrors with music by Philip Glass was inside a box painted by Roy Lichtenstein. A Ferris Wheel featuring provocative words on the back of each seat was created by Basquiat. A facade at the entrance of the bathroom has two Jack-and-the-Beanstalk-sized piles of pooh on each side of it by Daniel Spoerri called the “Crap Chancellery.”
Most amazing is that at the gift shop you can purchase actual posters from the original exhibit. No copies, the real ones. They will run from a few hundred dollars to nearly $1,000, but they are one-of-a-kind. Apparently, the exhibitors don’t have the rights to sell copies of the art (yet, so I’m told), so they are limited about what they can reproduce.
However, a bare red monkey butt originated by Basquiat can be purchased as a plushie for $65.
So, you may have missed this crazy art show this time around, but they promise to hit the road soon, and you’ll have a chance to see it again.
But don’t forget, that any description you hear about Luna Luna that forgets to include the fart music is a description that really stinks.
Keep up with the exhibit at: Lunaluna.com and sign up for their updates.
You can reach Mike at mikeszy@aol.com.
