![Hubert Aratym photographing a child as an angel in his Face-in-hole paintings of characters while others watch for Luna Luna park 1987.](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/4736/Header_Aratym_4_000019.jpg)
Hubert Aratym
![Hubert Aratym’s contribution to the 1987 Luna Luna park was a series of painted head-through-the-wall cutout boards featuring various artist created characters](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/Aratym.png)
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
![](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/Aratym_3_2022-11-08-211756_wxvd.jpg)
![](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/5636/Aratym_4.jpg)
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.
![](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/Aratym_02430011_2022-11-08-205130_bfmw.jpg)
Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings, exhibited 1987.
![](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/Aratym_02430052.jpg)
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.
![](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/Aratym_000087.jpg)
Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings, exhibited 1987.
![Daytime view of guests with Hubert Aratym’s painted head -in-the-wall cutout boards for the original 1987 Luna Luna park.](https://cms.lunaluna.com/uploads/artists-and-attractions/_default800/5230/Aratym_10.jpg)
Fairground view: Hubert Aratym, Pavilion with face-in-hole paintings. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, 1987.