Thursday, May 5, 2011

"Put a bird on it"







Zok and I rode our bikes out to the new Museum, that opened here in Hobart.
MONA: Museum of the Old and New, is part of the conglomerate that makes up Moorilla Winery, which has an ampitheatre, accommodation, restaurant, winery and brewery (Moo Brew). I believe that most if not all the museum art is privately owned by David Walsh who started said conglomerate.

The building is impressive, huge sandstone walls, I suppose due in part to the fact that the art is housed underground. There is a large spiral staircase with an elevator in the center to take you into the bowels of the building.

Zok was disappointed only by our snack at the wine bar, because the portions were small, and his red wine came in a small glass the type most would consider appropriate for a white or dessert wine. I was impressed by the fact that there were many bikes parked around and only a few were locked.

Myself, I was too happy with my nice long, easy bike ride and feeling smug about not taking the ferry which takes about the same amount of time, but costs $15. I spent that money on my snack, earned through the work of my pedaling.

Since Monte and I had recently gone to see some modern art at LACMA, I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but really I just enjoyed almost all of MONA.
The pieces are diverse enough that I doubt many people would love all of them. There are also some ancient pieces- as shown by the Eygptian owl. The owl was funny because while I was on the West Coast of America the new running joke was from a show called 'Porlandia' where if in doubt about your art piece/craft "Put a bird on it", mocking the trend of the last few years where birds abound on items.


I love having another destination off the bike track, and a new place to take visitors. (That is a hint people).
I do wish that Tourism Tasmania would go the route of many American States, and offer Tasmania residents a discount on sites here on the island.
Although even a discount won't get me back to Port Arthur...

Another good bit about being on your bicycle is that stopping by town is easy, and so I got to visit Pip and Amy in the elevator, which really was quite cozy, I could have stayed much longer...
You can read about Pip and her work here:
http://pipstafford.blogspot.com/

Wondering why she is in an elevator? You can read about that here:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/04/29/226165_attitude.html

You can find out more about the museum MONA here:
http://mona.net.au/

4 comments:

Saff said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pip said...

I'm famous!

Sookie said...

It is the red hair Pip...

Monte Means said...

Really. Good. Post. Miss you and love you, but you know that, right?