{"id":1262,"date":"2019-01-06T12:27:33","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T12:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/?p=1262"},"modified":"2022-09-02T12:04:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T12:04:09","slug":"mona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/06\/mona\/","title":{"rendered":"Submerged and stimulated: experiencing MONA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I was inundated with talk of the Museum of New and Old Art (MONA) when I started a Master of Art Curatorship two years ago. Fellow students raved about the playground-like gallery as a focus of their Tasmanian holidays and academics eagerly shared their antidotes from frequent \u2018research\u2019 trips to the innovative museum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My curiosity was sparked by Australian gambler\/art enthusiast David Walsh\u2019s eccentric and sensational experimental institution located in humble Hobart. Over the last few years, I visited \u2013 and indulged and judged and re-visited etc- most iconic Australian galleries but after recently finishing my degree, I desperately wanted to make the trip across the water and experience the most distinctive on the Australian market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 2018\u2019s sunny Boxing Day, I arrived at the gallery grounds. Vineyards, bars, open grill, lines of tour buses, tennis courts, gift stores, landscape views, larger-than-life-sculptures and crowds dazed me. Twenty minutes passed until I found the gallery\u2019s entrance. Ecstatic and distracted, I had almost forgotten I was visiting an art gallery at all. This interruption at arrival set a precedent: MONA is not about visiting several art exhibitions on your day off or interstate holiday but moreso being submerged by an excessively stimulated destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As instructed, I travelled three levels below ground to Zero<\/a><\/strong> <\/a>to begin my tour (without signposting I thought it was the gallery\u2019s starting point but, as I just discovered on Google, it is actually a curated exhibition<\/a>). Arriving to MONA’s depths, I was greeted by a forthrightly placed bar screaming how edgy the institution thinks itself. Ignoring it, I commenced down the dark walkway of peaking mystical objects, including taxidermy bats, from behind curtains evocative of Melbourne\u2019s most tacky theatre Dracula’s Cabaret <\/em>rather than a sophisticated art experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I explored a random and fun sequence of rooms layered with contemporary art (or apparently not so random, considering it was an exhibition). An otherworldly encounter with James Turrell’s Journey<\/a><\/em> <\/a>led me to Faro, <\/em>a light-filled bar engulfed by water and mountain views where I let go of my snobby pretentions and enjoyed a very generous serving of sangria. Usually, I skip over gallery pit-stops as they appear as a tired attempt to pinch my pennies but Faro actually <\/em>felt like a catered, upscale experience to break up the intensity of a large-scale gallery. Cheers to that. Following, I weaved through higher levels containing the same extravagance of Zero\u2019s introduction with the addition of the other half of the museum\u2019s namesake: old art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, MONA pulled me into its underground barrage of art until I tired myself out. Throughout the several hours, all my senses were activated. Disorientating extreme light and darkness,<\/g> smells<\/g> of grease and excrement, random tunnels and curtains, live piano and tone-deaf singing made a sensory spectacle. Grotto (<\/em>2017) by Randy Polumbo was epitomic of my experience of being pulled from everyday life into a disruptive illusion of all sorts – while this example felt a little too much like I was in a 1990’s kids movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I wandered, I was not viewing art as per most leisurely gallery visits but, rather, allowing the experimental presentation of art to distort my feeling of space and time. It would be a task to unpack what I experienced through my five senses, my heart rate and exhilarating confusion (oh, tattooed Tim<\/a>…) – which I can’t do in this short-ish analysis on the overall visitor experience. So, I will move on…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, MONA was unusual (as I expected). But despite its proclaimed grotesqueness and lack of conservative approach, it’s intention is not to repel but instead play public engagement to perfection. A family friendly place, children bounced around with their parents. \u2018A secret door!\u2019 a young family ran into a discrete room past a smartly dressed couple contemplating a less extravagant presentation of Yayoi Kusama. While some areas were exposed with grand points of group gravitation like Yves Klein ‘Pigment bleu sec (Dry Blue Pigment)’ (1957)<\/g><\/a> ,<\/g> nooks and crannies urged me to poke my nose around the place, like hole in the wall 3 Spheres Trames Grid Spheres <\/em>by Francois Morelette. I was kept inquisitive while everyone around me was exploring and, seemingly, captivated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nonetheless, MONA was not pure entertainment when tact was required. Hiroshima in Tasmania <\/em>presented a stark change of pace, switching to a serious tone as visitors were welcomed to etch rocks carted from a bombed area, where victims likely died, to feel the texture and connect to the atrocity. I did not do the etching as I was already feeling overwhelmed without trying to touch base with WWII trauma. Yet by merely touching the rocks, my fingers were covered in the charcoal giving them a poetic ashy look. The gallery had hyped me up and slowed me down at its will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the toilets were disruptive. As I walked down a pitch-black hallway near Faro<\/em>, scanning for \u2018the ladies,\u2019 I was met with a dozen glowing \u2018all gender\u2019 doorways. Sadly, this is a fantastic display of progressive thinking in a sometimes backward modern Australia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MONA succeeds with deconstructing ideas of how you experience an art gallery. However, I don’t believe it is subversive \u2013 as branded – but rather a smart appeal the modern visitor who wishes – or needs-<\/em> to consume with excitement and grandeur. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making my way through MONA was strikingly similar to visiting IKEA: unconventional enough that it felt explorative and random while I knew I was actually being engrossed into a pre-ordained experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don\u2019t reject this approach. MONA grasps, more than any other major art institution in the country, that the contemporary audiences need to feel, touch, taste, smell as well as see at new heights to explore ideas. Through this, MONA frees the majority who aren\u2019t well-behaved intellectuals who like to read wall text and maintain a refrained composure. Side-stepping suffocating art histories and art world personalities, the institution relies on the art\u2019s initial sensory impact and allows it to be enjoyed in that energetic\u2013 but still framed – moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MONA’s thoughtfully planning public engagement for all might project a fa\u00e7ade of mass-entertainment and frivolous fun but it isn\u2019t essentially a shallow experience. If you have pre-existing knowledge, you can enjoy it in context without being pretentious at the expense of your less knowledgeable counterparts. I hate going to a gallery with a friend who didn\u2019t happen to spend years studying art to have them be pushed into an awkward role of non-expert as I \u2018get it\u2019 more. These galleries are curated within an intellectual power imbalance which is unengaging and frustrating for visits with your (non-art world) friends.  This scenario doesn’t occur at MONA: everyone can enjoy their visit in their way. As my partner snapped pictures and made sparing comments, I took moments to read the gonzo: <\/em>challenging and controversial short essays on my provided iPhone guide. Thousands flurried around us at different paces. The awkward pretense of many art<\/g> galleries was non-existant<\/g>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While I am arguing MONA suits the masses with different points of entry, there is a fair criticism that the institution does not appeal to non-tourists and local residents who don\u2019t fall into a tertiary educated, middle-class background. Jumping on Hobart\u2019s public transport following my MONA visit surely revealed a discrepancy <\/a>between who visited the gallery and who actually lived in the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While on the topic of criticisms, I have several more in terms of curatorial logistics: <\/p>\n\n\n\n