10/31 MONA, Tasmania

October 31, 2014

MONA, Museum of Old and New Art

Hobart, Tasmania

We went to the Vodafone store to ask wether we should use our Australian cell phone chip in New Zealand with roaming or if we should buy a new chip in New Zealand.  The young man helping us said to buy a New Zealand chip and asked us our plans for the afternoon.  He said we must go to MONA.  He said that a guy who became incredibly rich counting cards created the museum called MONA. He has since been banned from all the casinos.  Now he spends loads of money on his museum.

View of the back of MONA from across the water

The land in front of the museum is the winery.  You exit Main Road and drive thru the vines to get to the parking lot.  The Museum includes a brewery as well as a winery.

From the parking lot you walk thru the rear grounds toward the buildings.

This is a view looking back over the yard as we walked in.

View looking across the rear yard as we walked in

Far Left - People sitting in pink bean bags

Left - Hand washing station with three different types of sinks.  Why?

Middle - A teepee (?) with a recording of a woman's voice inside and nothing else

Right - Winery

A departing couple told us to walk across a tennis court to enter the museum.  The whole entry process was confusing.

I have to say that I thought the front entry facade itself was pretty cool, once I knew that was the way to get in the museum.

The mirrored front facade reflects and distorts the images in front of it.

Once inside, you take a circular stairway down three floors to start the experience.  You are told there are no descriptions around the art.  You are given an iPhone which is programmed to describe the art you are near.  This worked for me sometimes and didn't work at other times.  I'm pretty sure this was operator error.

It was a very strange experience and included a lot of performance art.  It thought it was quite wierd.  Russ really disliked it and did not even try to use the iPhone.

Photos were not allowed inside.  The brochure tells you to "buy a postcard".  So here's a photo of part of the brochure.  

I'll tell you about the piece under "evolving exhibition" shown above.  The name of the exhibit is CLOACA PROFESSIONAL.  You enter a room and the smell is nearly intolerable.  There are a bunch of these things hanging from the ceiling.  

The brochure states "Feeding times 11am & 4pm, Pooing time 2pm".  

Do you think this is art?

Russ liked this concrete mixer that was on the grounds.  I signed up to receive an email of my tour with additional information.  Next time I have free wifi and I remember, I'll have to read about this piece.

The views from the grounds were incredible.  I loved the "guard rails", but they would never be allowed at home in "America" (that's what everyone here calls it).

My handsome hubby is happy outside the museum :)

The architecture was fascinating, used quite a variety of materials and was extremely well built.

The museum had a bus parked in the rear, the Mona Roma :). 

My girlfriend Mona should have one of these!

We sat at the wine bar in the rear for a drink.  Russ had a Moo Brew (craft beer made on site) and I had a Moorilla wine (also made on site).  It took me a bit of time before I realized that the chairs were hands.

There was a little boy chasing this incredibly handsome rooster away.  

His parents encouraged him to "chase away the chook".

The rear lawn had quite a number of birds walking around.  These were the cutest.

All done........