An Art Attack at Mona followed by a spooky late night experience in the old execution yard at the Hobart Penitentiary Chapel.
Some of you may not know that I am an artist and photographer. Always have been. In the early 2000's I actually made a living from the sale of my artworks and photography. But that was before the global financial crisis. Not anymore, the first thing people stopped buying was art.
I'm not sure how long David Walsh has been buying art for..... Last weekend I visited his impressive collection at his mega million dollar Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)
WOW.
The idea of Mona is so radical and new it will be very carefully looked at in the international art scene. Hopefully, it will establish itself as one of the major museums in the world bringing people from all over the world to view it, as they do with places like the Louvre in France and the Tate Museum in London.Upon arrival, we were given a quick lesson on how to use our iPod device, which can sense your location and give you information about the works around you in the building. Then it was down the glass lift to view this amazing and sometimes confronting collection of art.
(Above) "the Poo Machine" Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca Professional, a machine built to imitate the human digestive system
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Mona is full of works by many well-known artists. There are pressed plants and stones from a railway station in Hiroshima that we all get to make rubbings from that are then archived, there are many drawings including delicate charcoal drawings by less well-known artists like Dutch artist Juul Kraijer, or Belgian artist Berlinde de Bruyckere, whose cast wax horse and man sculptures are cleverly made with coloured wax behind pale wax echoing the pale human flesh in old Northern European paintings. There is the X-rated section that parents are warned about.
And Janis Kounellis’ Untitled, a great steel frame built in the dimensions of Picasso’s famous painting Guernica, from which huge real sides of beef hang looking like oil paintings by Rembrandt as well as simply spectacular butchered flesh.
But there is also a small casual work made by Kounellis when he was in Hobart to install his big work – a wooden chair on which sits a bowl of water with two goldfish swimming in it and a cook’s knife resting on its rim. Then there is the tattooed pighide by Wim Delvoye that is displayed in a case like a shaman’s cloak.
Walsh has also rescued Sidney Nolan's 46-metre-long Snake from obscurity. As long as an Olympic swimming pool, and composed of 1620 individual drawings, Snake dominates one of MONA's subterranean galleries and speaks of myth and metamorphosis. The work has only been shown twice before, in England and Ireland, and it is the first time it will be seen in Australia. Nolan's widow, Mary, had been trying to sell it for more than a decade. Walsh, who is a great admirer of Nolan's work, bought it in 2005 from Sotheby's, paying more than $2 million. There are many other Nolan works on display, alongside Brett Whiteley and many others that have for years inspired me.
The entrance - is the tennis court also a work of art?
Thank you David Walsh. it’s mind blowing. It’s thought provoking. it’s scary. It’s confronting. It’s beautiful. It’s ours. What a breath of fresh air to visit a gallery that really expands the mind and enlivens the senses! 4 hours flew past and we did not see half of it. I spoke to people who were on their 11th visit to Mona! I want to shout and scream and jump up and down and tell everyone to GO THERE! Tasmania is on the cusp of becoming the avant garde art capital of Australia!
- Now comes the really weird part : We (my daughter Angelina and nephew Shaun, and I ) went on a GHOST TOUR at the Hobart Penitentiary Chapel.
Now, I am not interested in seeing ghosts, I'm the biggest chicken and biggest skeptic around, but..... If they do exist, I want to capture one on a photo. I'd feel safe back in my motel room viewing the photos I've taken!!
Anyway, we were shown around the site, including the old execution yard and gallows and told stories of people hearing bangs (its in the city centre, theres noise everywhere) the tour guide was very creepy without even trying, that was enough to spook me. He also mentioned people seeing mist occasionally. Ho hum.
Well we were in the final few minutes of the tour, making our way upstairs again, Shaun opened the door at the top of the stairs and went into the room, I was standing halfway up the stairs waiting. The guide was at the bottom of the stairs with the lantern. While I was waiting, I felt something tap me twice on the top of my leg. I looked down to see if anyone was near me, there was only the three of us plus the guide on the tour. The tour guide was still at the bottom of the stairs. I didn't say anything. Then I felt the tap on my leg again. Still no-one there. Then it was my turn to step out of the stair well. Once out, I pointed my camera down the stair well to where I had been standing and fired a shot off using the flash. Well, well, well, there was some mist in the foreground!!!!!! Golly gosh! I've since had the photo verified by Paranormal Australia and the mist is what they call ECTOPLASM - a spirit materialising or something. WOW.
I still don't want to beleive tho', coz I'm a scaredy cat.
After the tour we went and had some fun outside taking pictures in the floodlights against the buildings. Heres some of our pics below........
Below is just some silly-ness ....... (helped to take out mind off the haunted building)
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