Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy was on view at The Shed from November 20, 2024, to March 16 in Hudson Yards.
This past winter, empty rides dotted the void of The Shed, Hudson Yards’ protrusible, perennially unloved kunsthalle that slowly expands on giant wheels like a torpid, $475 million carnival attraction. A menacing Ferris wheel tattooed in Basquiat runes carried no one to vertiginous heights. Two carousels—a gyre of materialized Keith Haring squiggles and a whirl of fairy-tale chimeras by Austrian magic realist Arik Brauer—spun no one around and around. Queasy demons lorded over empty whizzing seats on Kenny Scharf’s technicolor chairoplane. Visitors could stand in the sylvan cylinder of David Hockney’s forest pavilion, which resembled a Rotor ride but was actually a motionless, albeit beguiling, can. Salvador Dalí’s mirrored geodesic dome occasioned a flashy celebration of the humble triangle, with ample opportunity for infinitely regressing triangular selfies. Mildly disappointed reviews reflected an expectation that Luna Luna: Forgotten…