The Miracle that is MONA There is a reality about Tasmania which no one wants to talk about. Apart from a brief period when tin was successfully mined, the island has never been truly self-sufficient. It relies on timber and hydro-electricity to keep the economy from stagnating but the reality is that, when it finds a truly amazing tourist attraction, the island’s economy can be driven by mainlanders visiting and spending money. In 1973 the establishment of the Wrest Point Casino - the first legal gambling casino in Australia - gave the island economy an impressive boost and in recent times the remarkable success of David Walshs modern art gallery - known simply as MONA - has, so one source claims, accounted for a staggering 30% of all visits to the island. The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is the great tourism miracle. The story has been told over and over again but it is worth recounting. David Walsh is a mathematical genius who, when he turned his narrow skills towards high stakes gambling, became a multimillionaire. He also happened to like modern art … and, lucky for Hobart, he had impeccably good taste. He could tell the difference between art and arty wanking … even if one of the works in the museum is titled ‘Art Wank’. He bought land upstream from Hobart on the Derwent River in a working class area where he built the staggeringly beautiful MONA gallery space for an estimated $200 million. It was carved out of a sandstone cliff face. He then filled it with modern works of art that, to use a cliché, simply took the breath away. This was no “what the bloody hell is that” art gallery but rather a “Hey! Did you see that” with, in the early days, a piece which was “a waterfall, the droplets of which form words from the most-Googled headlines of the day” being the most talked about. In recent times Walsh’s personal car spaces marked “God” and “God’s Mistress” have elicited endless mirth and amusement. For me MONA is a true rarity. An art gallery/museum I could return to over and over again. A place of wonder and magic. A place to excite the imagination. I could rave on and on about it. Rather than that, let this year’s Booker Prize winning novelist, Richard Flanagan, do the work for me. I urge everyone to check out Flanagan’s 2013 article for the New Yorker at newyorker/magazine/2013/01/21/tasmanian-devil. It is simply the best account of this unique artistic folly.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 04:08:06 +0000
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