Something Old and Something New: The MONA
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Posted by Gabriella Hirst on Mon 14 November 2011
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Built into a remote section of the banks of Tasmania’s wind-swept Derwent River, the Museum of Old and New Art opened in a cloud of media buzz in January this year. I took myself down to Hobart to check out curator/owner David Walsh’s AU$175 million cathedral to the arts.
This place is kind of whack. It has a private vineyard, micro-brewery, outdoor concert stage and tennis courts. Inside, it is like somebody (Walsh) has refurbished the Jenolan Caves with minimalist 60s-era James Bond secret lair getup. Then filled the place with a brilliantly curated dichotomy of (largely-confrontational) contemporary artworks, and captivating artefacts preserved from antiquity.
As the entire gallery is void of title cards and plaques, it is possible to glance from one artwork to the next clueless as to whether the object is mummified or simply the remnants of some violent performance art action from the 70s. To minimize these instances of confusion Walsh and his clever cohorts supply personal audio guide devices that automatically display information and commentary about the artworks closest to the viewer. When you leave the gallery, a virtual copy of your interactive tour is automatically emailed to you, so you can relive the whole experience, a week later, whilst sitting in bed eating microwaved tuna casserole.
“Walsh created the MONA using the billions he made as a professional gambler, a nugget of information, which adds to the bizarre intrigue of the already intriguing Museum.”
It would be easy, before visiting the gallery, to look at the big art-world names in the MONA’s collection (eg, Damian Hirst, world’s most expensive artist, of shark-suspended-in-formaldehyde fame) and conclude that Walsh has simply picked out the most luxe, showy artworks money can buy. But ten minutes inside the MONA’s grotto-esque passageways is enough to convince me of Walsh and his Curator’s cutting-edge taste, and to showcase his admirable support of young and emerging artists from within Australia and abroad. Veteran Australian artist Arthur Boyd’s priceless painting Melbourne Burning hangs across the hall from a photograph by Chinese emerging artist Wang Quingsong . Actually, Walsh has made himself a pretty inspiring patron for emerging artists in Tasmania particularly, each year giving out a $12500 bursary to a young Tasmanian artist for the creation of new work.
Amongst the works on display in the permanent (but continually transforming and shifting) exhibition, Monanisms, there is an all pervading atmosphere of emotional rawness, and a recurring theme of the macabre. The wall display of anxious/cathartic action videos by ‘the grandmother of performance art’, Marina Abramovic, and the ghostly hanging wax sculpture of a horse corpse by Belgian Artist Berlinde de Bruyckere are enough to have you leave feeling emotionally in tatters. And I did, twice, as one day alone was not ample time to absorb all the eerie wonders on show at the MONA. But it is not all gloomy and heartbreaking. Beautiful, mesmerising works such as Clare Morgan’s delicate dandelion sculpture are a reminder of the irreplaceable value of hand skills and patience in art-making.
The Mona is a world-class museum. And Tasmania, for all it’s bipolar weather tendencies, and end-of-the-world disposition, is an incredibly beautiful city. I recommend you get down there as soon as your pennies allow.
Photographer: Gabriella Hirst
