Curated by Austrian artist André Heller, it was an attempt to "create a travelling terrain of modern art, that in the centuries-old principle of the fairground involves people of all ages and educational levels in playful acts".
[1] Heller commissioned around 30 contemporary artists to design the attractions, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dalí, David Hockney, Kenny Scharf, Roland Topor, Jean Tinguely, and Sonia Delaunay.
"[2] While some of the artists traveled to West Germany for the project, others sent their designs to Vienna, where a specialist team of technicians and theater painters, carpenters and architects carried out the work.
[4] There were around 30 attractions, which included a walk-in "shadow room" by Georg Baselitz, a musical "enchanted tree" by David Hockney, and boldly colored glass labyrinth by Roy Lichtenstein.
[8] Kenny Scharf created six comic sculptures and painted more than 100 individual pictures in a Viennese workshop, which were mounted around a brightly colored swing carousel.
[4][9] Other attractions included a Sonia Delaunay-designed entrance gate, Salvador Dalí's "reflective pavilion" and a hand painted circus wagon by August Walla.
For the book cover, Heller asked the participating artists to draw a moon and add a sentence they found fitting.
[21] The revived exhibition opened in December 2023 and ran through spring 2024 in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles within a warehouse space.