Tasmania Travel Report.
Museum of Old and New Art.
All photographs taken with a 35mm lens on a Leica M-E.
I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy Mona before entering Mona.
Because after all that hype nothing can live up to the expectation.
Also because I wasn’t fully in a ‘touring’ mood; I was there to scout for a wedding the next day.
So instead of concentrating on the artwork, I was observing space, lighting, geometry, scale, weather. My wife probably thought I was having an affair, with my constant fidgeting, wandering eyes, phone-checking and what not.
So let’s get the first thing out of the way — the poo machine.
On paper it sounded like a great idea. But in context, seeing fifteen grown-ups waiting in foul stench, for a machine to produce something they can easily(?) do every morning, made me feel like the joke was on us.
You know that Eddie Murphy routine: we don’t avoid farts, we smell to confirm them.
The crowd was the art; not the machine.
I saw the giant room with binary codes and ominous music.
The fat Porsche.
(The blob is to consumption as the Porche is to capitalism! Get it? Get it? )
I found the ‘cunt soaps’ (yes they are exactly what you’re imagining) in the shop cute. Like Warhol cute. That we’re paying money to wash our bodies with vaginas.
But once I saw the ‘Great wall of Gina’ and realised the soaps were based on an actual art piece instead of a modern ironic joke, the magic was a little lost. Using genitals(and feces) as art is such an easy cop-out. But if you like these sort of things, may I recommend the Japanese artist who got arrested kayaking in a yellow boat modelled on the shape of her own vagina.
I had to remind myself that Mona is a personal gallery of a millionaire who got rich from gambling.
He just bought stuff he found interesting.
It’s not really about art, it’s because he can can can.
The current exhibition, River of Fundament, is a highlight of that.
It is an exhibition based on a film — a three-act opera in seven parts, to mirror the seven soul states of death in ancient Egyptian mythology, which is inspired by a book.
If you didn’t get the iPhone tour guide and read through the 500-word explanation, you wouldn’t have any idea.
The wife was confused and disappointed because she was here three months ago for a different exhibition. We had many ‘hey let me show you this interesting thing-oh it’s not here anymore’ moments.
Everything she thought cool and modern the last time, was replaced by Egyptian relics.
I was really distracted by the skid marks on the wall, as if someone had forgotten to clean it. The lady said the national women rugby team pushed and pulled the giant Boat of Ra around the space to create the ‘artistic strokes’. When asked where the boat was, she said she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been to the next room for a long time.
We queued up for 30 minutes to see a mummy. Only to realise it was a stone mummy, not an exposed mummy. But there was an LCD screen to show us what ‘could be’ inside the stone.
Do they care if the visitors ‘get’ it? No.
They’re having too much fun by themselves.
While waiting we had a chat with the girl(who was previously manning the poo machine) and asked if she was a volunteer. Her response was a knee-jerk assertion: no, OF COURSE she’s getting paid.
She then went off on a tangent about how she had really qualified friends (with university degrees and PhDs!) in Melbourne working for free in art galleries and museums.
Melbourne is disgusting, she emphasised before it was our turn to enter the room.
I’m glad Mona is paying the staff.
There’s a sense of pride in the people working here.
Just like how you don’t have to pay for admission if you‘re a local Tasmanian.
These gestures make the community proud.
Surprisingly, my favourite part of Mona was the on/off room. It was an empty space with the the lights going on, and off.
It tricked me into thinking they’re testing the room for some future installation and actually sparked a debate between the wife and I.
Another fun bit: we were at Hiroshima in Tasmania, where visitors get to pencil-trace over stones from the atomic site.
The white old lady there was educating my Japanese wife about the horror of atomic bomb. She then asked the wife how to accurately pronounce the Japanese artist’s name, which I found hilarious.
Unfortunately the main building’s facade for the bride and groom’s ceremony was under construction.
In fact, most of the space was under calibration so I didn’t get to see half of what I saw on the website, or in David’s autobiography.
(I’m really enjoying the book so far.)
Just to highlight his atheism, his car space was titled GOD; and the wife’s GOD’S MISTRESS.
Like I said, simply because he can can can.
Having said that, David would probably get awarded the Order of Australia simply based on Mona’s contribution to Tasmania’s tourism.
I for one am certain that I would not have step foot in this state, if it wasn’t for Mona.
Why spend 30 million dollars on advertising campaigns when you can build a museum?
Before leaving, we ventured out to the hotels next to the parking lot.
And thought it would be nice to stay there.
Just like how it would be nice to order drinks at the bar right at The Void.
Or to take a cruise here.
Or to have a wedding there.
Things that has nothing to do with art — the facilities, the elevator, the wine labels, the USB stick in the shape of a bullet, were polished to perfection.
Later that evening, as I was shooting the rehearsal dinner in North Hobart, the groom’s father said you go to Mona for the architecture rather than the artwork.
I couldn’t disagree.
For me, the people in Mona were more interesting than Mona itself.
