Museum of Old and New Art
The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is an art museum located within the Moorilla winery on the Berriedale peninsula in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. It is the largest privately funded museum in the Southern Hemisphere. MONA houses ancient, modern and contemporary art from the David Walsh collection. Noted for its central themes of sex and death, the museum has been described by Walsh as a "subversive adult Disneyland".
MONA was officially opened on 21 January 2011. Along with its frequently updated indoor collection, Mona also hosts the annual Mona Foma and Dark Mofo music and arts festivals which showcase large-scale public art and live performances.
Discrimination
In March 2024, Jason Lau, a visitor from New South Wales, filed a lawsuit against the museum, saying that it engaged in illegal discrimination by barring him from seeing its "Ladies Lounge" exhibition, which its creators had intended to provide a safe place for women to enjoy each other's company and to highlight the exclusion faced by women for decades. The museum's legal counsel acknowledged that he had been discriminated against, but added that it was part of the intended experience of the artwork. Artist Kirsha Kaechele, who is also David Walsh's wife, defended the exhibition in court, saying that "It excludes men, and I would be lying if I were to say I didn't find it titillating."
In April 2024, a court ordered MONA to cease denying persons not identifying as women into the Ladies Lounge. The museum responded by installing female toilets in the exhibit area. The toilets were initially reported to feature works by Pablo Picasso that had formed part of the original exhibit, but it was later revealed in a blog post by Kaechele that the paintings were forgeries that she had painted three years earlier.
In September 2024, Supreme Court of Tasmania Justice Shane Marshall overturned the April ruling after determining that it was legal for men to be banned from the “Ladies Lounge”, because it is legal to discriminate if doing so promotes “equal opportunity” for a marginalised group.
Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
https://gardendrum.com/2015/03/03/review-mona-it-lost-me-at-the-gate/
See Also
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