MONA*

* Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart Tasmania.

Sounds like an apt place for a curmudgeon to go to.

When in Hobart we spent a pleasant half day here.

Here's a link to explain what it is all about:

MONA

MONA is a pleasant half hour ferry trip from Hobart up the Derwent River.
It is on the site of the old Moorilla Estate winery (which still operates). It is on a peninsular of sandstone cliffs.

The museum was constructed by cutting into these cliffs creating a 10,000 M2 of floor space going down over 3 levels. There are no windows inside the museum so it is like a multi-level mausoleum which adds to its weird charm.

It cost over $80 mil to build and apparently has artwork valued at well over $100 mil.
The guy behind it all is David Walsh a controversial Australian said to have made his fortune by professional gambling (and not paying taxes). He's a bit of a nutter but without people like him we wouldn't have places like this.

The Old Girl and I love art galleries and museums both old and new and make visiting them a focal point of our travels. Of the modern ones our favourites are the Getty in L.A., the Guggenheim in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice, Musee d'Orsay in Paris, Te Papa in Wellington and now MONA.

The collection we saw ranges from modern traditional through bizarre to objectionable and obscene. Go there open-minded. All visitors are given an i-phone type device that lists and explains all pieces of art and installations near you. It allows comment and rating and the experience can be saved to your e-mail address. Clever.

I won't list what we saw and our favourites. Art is personal like jewellery and underwear.

I do implore you to check out MONA on-line and add it to your list of places to go to. People are now visiting Tasmania just to go to MONA (and it was only opened last year).

Up North Whangarei may finally be going ahead with the Hundertwasser gallery. This outstanding project will bring new visitors to Whangarei and I believe to New Zealand. It has been a long battle with silly old farts wanting something 'traditional' and, or a Maori experience instead. WTF! There's as much Maori experience as you want in Northland, good and bad and there is an excellent visitor centre at Waitangi. New Zealand has plenty of boring traditional buildings for some people to gawk at, what we lack is unique, challenging architecture.

Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist/ architect who designed beautiful buildings that decorate various town and cities in Europe.

Hundertwasser settled in New Zealand before he died. His legacy to us is the outstanding Kawakawa toilets which is a mecca for visitors to the North

.

Hundertwasser said "Visual pollution is the worst sort of pollution because it destroys the soul"


Now (hopefully) we will soon see and outstanding Hundertwasser influenced gallery in Whangarei's basin area (by the water). This will bring visitors to the North in the same way that people visit Bilbao, The Gettys, the various Guggenheims etc. We should be proud.