On the Origin of Art opens at MONA

Fiona Pardington is in the exhibition On the Orgin of Art which opens this weekend at the Museum of Old and New, Hobart. Her works are in a section curated by Brian Boyd, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English, University of Auckland. Read more...
Image: Fiona Pardington, Portrait of a life-cast of Matoua Tawai, Aotearoa/New Zealand 2010, pigment inks on Hanhnemuhle Photo Rag. Courtesy of the Musee de l'Home, Paris

DARK MOFO at the Museum of Old and New Art

The Museum of Old And New Art;'s winter festival DARK MOFO returns to Hobard next month (12-22 June) with a mix art, food, music and light. The visual art programme promises to be one of the high points of this year's festival with an array of installations, including Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's personalised light sculptures, Yin Xiuzhen's wall of ice and Ross Manning's subterranean light installations.

Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art launches a winter festival

Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art is back in the news with its inaugural winter festival Dark Mofo, which lit up the city over the weekend.

The visual arts component of the festival includes Kurt Hentschlager's installation Zee, which comes with a warning of its hallucinatory and potentially dangerous effects. People entering the piece must sign a waiver as the work can trigger what the artist decribes as an emergency shutdown of the brain as it struggles to process the aural and visual onslaught. But other works in the program offer more contemplative experiences, such as Ryoji Ikeda's tower of pure white light reaching 15 kilometers into Hobart's night sky.

MONA has transformed Hobart, putting what was once regarded as a sleepy hollow on the global arts and culture map. And the state government is happily piggybacking on the stunning success of the museum - on this occasion by contributing $1 million a year for three years to the winter festival.
Images: Kurt Hentschlager's Zee and Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra [Tasmania], featuring in MONA's winter festival Dark Mojo

Taxman's claim for a share of gambling winnings places MONA's future at risk

Fears that Hobart's wildly successful Museum of Old and New Art may close if the Australian Tax Office goes after the eccentric gaming mogul and art collector behind it have sparked widespread concern in Tasmania where it has become a tourism boon for the debt-ridden state. David Walsh's $180 million museum has drawn 600,000 visitors in its first 18 months and is Tasmania's single most visited attraction, but it costs him around $8 million annually to keep the museum open, a contribution that may be at risk in the light of the ATO's claim that he has been running a $2.4 billion gambling business and owes $37 million in backdated taxes.
Image: Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart

David Walsh says a $40 million tax bill won't force the closure of his Museum of Old and New Art

The Museum of Old and New Art is back in the news with reports that mathematician turned gambler David Walsh is in the sights of the Australian Tax office. The ATO says Walsh and others in a secret punter's club have been running a A$2.4 billion global banking business and wants taxes due. At last count Walsh faces a tax bill of just under A$40 million, which he disputes.

As the details became public, he was being asked whether this spelled the end of MONA. But Walsh remains upbeat, saying he is confident an agreement can be reached with the ATO and that he is determined to keep MONA running.
Image: David Walsh, founder of Hobart's Museum of Old And New Art

The MONA effect

Launched in January 2011 by gambling millionaire and maverick David Walsh, Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is on Australia's art map and is credited with having spared Hobart from the worst of the tourism declined triggered by the global financial crisis. During its first year MONA attracted about 400,000 visitors and is the state's number one visitor attraction. It was named Tasmania's best new tourism development of 2011 and is in the running for the national tourism awards in March.

Transforming Hobart's image from a sleepy backwater to a cultural playground comes at a cost. The $80m museum costs about $15m a year to run, which prompted Wash to start charging interstate visitors (entry remains free for Tasmanians). However the real money is to come from the sale of technology, such as the "O", the super-smart, iPod-like device that in the absence of wall labels provides information about artworks when pointed at them, and tracks visitors movements in the gallery.

Image: MONA, Hobart

Gambling wizard's Museum of Old and New Art launched in Hobart

MONA, the $150m Museum of Old and New Art built by gambling wizard David Walsh to house his private collection, has opened in Hobart. MONA is directed by Mark Fraser, who was the managing director of Sotheby's Australia for 19 years before leaving to take up his new position.

15,000 people requested invitations to the opening but only 2,500 were lucky enough to to be selected. They were randomly chosen by a computer which is fitting as Walsh owes his millions to games of hazard.

This link takes you to a Sydney Morning Herald article on Walsh and his new museum.

Image: MONA (Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia