Mary & Frederik's Private Tour of MONA in Tasmania 2011.....
Hi Again Everyone,
My last post for 2013 -
I was sitting looking at the view from my sister's home a while ago - Launceston is in a valley where three rivers meet, with some some large bare mountains looking down on it from the eastern side - planning what we could fit, and not fit in, to our remaining days down here in Tasmania, as we will run out of time here before we know it.
One thing I won't be spending a day on again - in my entire life in fact
- is our very successful MONA, that CP Mary and CP Frederik were given a private tour of when they were last here, in 2011.
I must say, it has been an economic boon to the state, and is always crowded with both locals and visitors from elsewhere.
It has really put Tasmania on the "art map" - maybe even world-wide.
Certainly, it has been the focus of some very strong marketing of Tasmania by our tourism board.
I noticed M and F's visit didn't seem to get much mention at the time - perhaps because it was during the private part of their Australian tour.
Anyway, I had been warned about some of the exhibitions - the theme is of sex and death in large part - but, truely, in some rooms I chose to avert my gaze, and look at the floor while awaiting my companions.
(Mind you, I don't watch horror or violent movies, so perhaps I'm in the more sensitive catagory anyway.)
Having been to it - and indeed there are some things of great interest and beauty - I sometimes wonder what M and F made of it all.
Especially as I think they were escorted around by the man who's actual private collection makes it up - it's open to the public, but is his private art he has collected.
And in fact, he has been working over the years with our historic collections, and had great success with how different items have been curated together from our "normal" museums and his items, so I hope I'm not coming of as too negative about it.
The building itself is wonderful - dug out of the sandstone in that area, going down, down, down.
But, it is quite confronting in some of it's works, and I can't imagine what M and F would have thought.
MONA stands for "Museum of Old and New Art", and we know CP Frederik has a particular interest in modern art, (the decor of the Amalienborg residence, for example), but I wonder if they knew what they were in for.
Happy New Year All,
Sun Lion.
P.S. And I'm not sure where I read it, but I saw somewhere that Launceston is where CP Mary's grandmother used to live - so I'm assuming she knows this part of Tasmania quite well, and not just the south of the island, or the lower east coast.