Hubert Aratym
For Luna Luna, Hubert Aratym designed an installation where visitors inserted their faces into cut-out holes, superimposing them onto the bodies of various characters.
Artist
Hubert Aratym
Attraction
Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings
Born
1926, Austria
Aratym was a painter, sculptor, stage designer, and tapestry artist
He collaborated with André Heller on another project called Circus Roncalli
His work often addresses identity through anguished figures with obscured faces
Fairground view: Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, 1987.
Hubert Aratym was an Austrian painter, sculptor, stage designer, and tapestry artist who designed set pieces for Jean Genet and costumes for Circus Roncalli, a professional circus founded in 1976 by Bernhard Paul and André Heller. Aratym’s tense paintings depict anguished figures with obscured faces, whether looking away, blindfolded, or wrapped in fabric, often taking the form of triptychs that resemble altarpieces.
Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings, exhibited 1987.
For the original Luna Luna, Aratym designed an installation where visitors inserted their faces into cut-out holes, superimposing them onto the bodies of an angel, a beggar, a harlequin, a king, and a whore. The installation plays with a classic carnival attraction and invites audiences to complete his paintings with their own identities, each time transforming the work anew. René Clemencic composed original music for the installation.
Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings, exhibited 1987.
Fairground view: Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, 1987.
Forgotten Fantasy
Thirty-six years ago, Luna Luna landed in Hamburg, Germany: the world’s first art amusement park with rides, games, and attractions by visionaries like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and David Hockney. By a twist of fate, the park’s treasures were soon sealed in 44 shipping containers and forgotten in Texas—until now.