Art on the trip around the world - MONA in Hobart

Our second week in Tasmania we started off with some culture & the arts. We visited the MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) on Monday morning. It is the largest privately funded museum in Australia, opened only in 2011. It is owned by David Walsh and you can see straight away that he put a fair amount of money into this museum. The interesting part about his story is that he made his whole fortune from gambling. Quite strange in my point of view but it obviously worked, he developed a gambling system and made millions betting on horses and other sports. It doesn't really matter how he earned his money but he is now giving a lot back to the community and his home town Hobart. He created a major tourist attraction. We were once again surprised by the amount of tourists that we encountered on our visit to the museum, it was packed to the rafters.

This museum on the one hand is a collection of a little bit of old art but mostly new art with lot's of installations and new art forms such as film and technology. Most of it could be described as weird, strange or however you want, it is quite an experience. Secondly the museum is definitely a great piece of architecture on the inside and just for this worth a visit. 

Let's have a look at some of the interesting exhibits: One of the most talked-about pieces is the 'cloaca machine' by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. It's a machine that mimics the human digestive system. It is fed, it farts and it poos, and even if you don't get to this piece of art during the feeding or pooing times you can certainly enjoy the strong, disgusting smell. Much like in a bush toilet at a camp ground of one of the great Tasmanian National Parks (don't get me wrong, the National Parks are great, but bush toilet is bush toilet, a Plumpsklo halt, as we say in Austria).

Another piece that I found very interesting was the "Fat Car", mostly of course because it's from an Austrian artist but it also drew lot's of attention by the crowd. A Porsche with Vienna licence plates, boasted up by foam making it.. well, a fat car. Erwin Wurm has created a few of those and obviously wants to bring attention to the obesity problem in the world.

Both Marlene and I enjoyed another installation with 30 TV screens showing 30 different people singing a whole album in karaoke style of Madonna at the same time. You can see one person per screen but it feels like you are confronted by a choir. Firstly the artist has deliberatly picked hard core fans in various outfits, state of minds and believes (as I would put it). Therefore the over an hour lasting sing-a-long of 30 people to Madonna songs becomes a funny, eye-catching experience. It actually makes fun of these hard core fans or basically of the fan culture and devotism to pop stars.

In total we only spent half a day in the museum although you can easily make it a full day exploring everything in detail. We definitely think it should be on the To-Do list whilst in Hobart. We were satisfied by what we had seen and experienced but also had enough art for the day. On we went to Barilla Bay Oysters where we enjoyed, once again, a dozen of freshly shucked oysters, what a culinary delight.