André Heller in front of his red and rainbow Inflatable café for 1987 Luna Luna park

André Heller

One of André Heller’s contributions to the 1987 Luna Luna park was the Inflatable café One of André Heller’s contributions to the 1987 Luna Luna park was the cardboard cutout Wedding Chapel

André Heller created two attractions for Luna Luna: The Dream Station, an inflatable structure that housed a cafe, and a Wedding Chapel installation where guests could marry whomever or whatever they wanted.

Artist

André Heller

Attraction

Inflatable café

Wedding chapel

Born

1947, Austria

Works in diverse mediums, including installation, theater, and sculpture.

Luna Luna continues his interest in creating fun and entertaining experiences for the masses.

Began planning Luna Luna in the 1970s

Fairground view: André Heller, Wedding chapel. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.
Fairground view: André Heller, Inflatable café. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.

André Heller (born 1947, Vienna, Austria; lives and works in Vienna and Marrakesh, Morocco) was a major Austrian pop star in the 1970s, releasing a dozen hit albums, several books, and avant-garde films. Driven by his wide-ranging curiosity and a desire to traverse artistic mediums, he turned to making art and artistic spectacles: circuses, parades, variety shows, fireworks displays, and poetic gardens—often involving audiences of millions.

Alongside being Luna Luna’s visionary and spokesperson, he embraced a wide range of
mediums—film, installation, music, theater, sculpture, and writing, each emphasizing
celebration, absurdity, and pleasure, often with a political purpose of claiming public space for
collective joy. A recent collaborative project, World State Machine, dispenses information about
climate change, while his installation Heroes of Peace incorporates holograms of individuals
aligned against war, including John Lennon and Nelson Mandela

André Heller with his inflatable café. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.

Heller imagined Luna Luna as a “total artwork” that combined visual art, music, theater, design, circus arts, and performance, and explained that the park aimed to recover public space for art and imagination. Opposed to doing so with public money—he saw government power and control as compromising—he instead partnered with the German magazine Neue Revue. While his influence was felt throughout the park, he contributed two features in particular. Dream Station was an inflatable, spiked balloon sculpture derived from one of his Sky Signs (1986–90) and served as a café. Wedding Chapel comprised a stage flanked by large scale caricatures of a bride and groom, in which visitors could “marry” whatever or whomever they wished—an open invitation that allowed for same-sex couples to marry, a political act in the 1980s. Heller also created carnival cutouts of celebrities that visitors could pose with for pictures.

Heller imagined Luna Luna as a “total artwork” that combined visual art, music, theater, design, circus arts, and performance, and explained that the park aimed to recover public space for art and imagination.

André Heller with cubist sculpture for wedding chapel, exhibited 1987.
Fairground view: André Heller, Inflatable café. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.

Discover more about your favorite artists and attractions

In the original Luna Luna book, translated and reissued for the first time since 1987.