Museum of Old and New Art
The MONA is an art museum located in a peninsula of Hobart, southwest of Tasmania. It is the largest privately funded museum in Australia, and was created by David Walsh, an eccentric mathematical whiz who made his fortunes by forming a gambling syndicate. The MONA is not just a museum, but an experience, and a controversial one too. Opened in January 2011, it caused quite a stir: some called it the end of art, while others celebrated it as a new type of museum.
Gary Tinterow, a former Met curator, described MONA as “one of the most fascinating and satisfying experiences I have ever had in a museum.” And Lonely Planet listed Hobart as one of the world’s top ten cities to visit in 2013, largely because of MONA.
To give an idea of what strange things are on display in the MONA, let me give you a short list.
- a wall of 150 sculptures of women’s vaginas
- a wall of 150 sculptures of women’s vaginas
- cow carcasses
- the remains of a suicide bomber cast in chocolate
- a lavatory in which, through a system of mirrors and binoculars, you can view your own butt
- and one of the most popular exhibit, the Cloaca Professional, which is a machine that creates poop from food by replicating the human digestive system (watch a video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdlLBWymnUA
As you can imagine, the diverse art pieces are at best thought-provoking and at worst disturbing, which reflects the creator of the museum, David Walsh, whom New Yorker profiles in this essay (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/21/tasmanian-devil). Most of the pieces in MONA come from Walsh’s private collection. Here are a few pictures just to pique your interest. I really hope we do get to visit the museum.
The museum is right by the waterfront, and has to be accessed by a ferry.
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I wonder what the point of having the museum only being accessible by ferry is! Looks beautiful, but seems odd that they would do that.
ReplyDelete+1 for Team Visit MONA. I think it's awesome to have such an extensive/eccentric art collection in Tasmania. It definitely adds to the unique culture of the state, even if Tasmania is a bit out of the way.
ReplyDeleteHey Emily-- David Walsh wanted people to enter the museum from the waters because that was how the ancient Greeks accessed their temples. I think it definitely adds to the charm/eccentricities.
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