September of 2010 saw great excitement in Portsmouth U.K. as this giant 16-metre dinosaur was erected on Southsea Common for the new aspex exhibition.
Luna Park was created in Serbia by internationally renowned artists Heather and Ivan Morison to memorialize the discovery in the 1970s of dinosaur bones, wrongly presumed to be that of the largest dinosaur, Ultrasauros. (The bones were later identified as having come from two different species.)
The giant work, built of hard, coloured polyester shell wrapped around a steel skeleton, was co-commissioned by three contemporary visual arts galleries – two of which are Arts Council England regularly funded organisations: Portsmouth’s aspexgallery and Firstsite in Colchester; and Welsh gallery Chapter based in Cardiff.
"Luna Park is a marker of time and place, a shelter, and a place to congregate," explained Heather Morison."The night time fluorescent lights that line the underside of its belly and the scattered assortment of chairs gathered beneath it bring up ideas of neglected spaces, night time spaces, lost worlds, disintegrating cities, disenfranchised groups, the alien and foreign within the familiar."
Ivan Morison added: "The black form of the boxy dinosaur is a strong dark presence in the cities it visits, able to absorb all feelings and thoughts that are projected upon it, before it moves on again."
Unfortunately, however, it was Heather Morison's night-time illumination that saw the great beast become extinct in a matter of weeks.
On the morning of 16th October, a localteam of demolition experts was called upon to remove the dinosaur's charred and twisted remains, the sculpture having been destroyed by fire.
It was a sad end for the giant dinosaur, which was due to go on a short U.K. tour. At first, arson was suspected, but an electrical fault in the animal's underbelly lighting caused by bad weather appeared to be the most likely reason for the blaze.
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