David Walsh’s ‘anti-museum’ on the banks of the Derwent river in Tasmania has beaten MoMa and Tate Modern to be named the world’s best modern art gallery. But part of Mona’s magic is that it feels like a dream
How cool it must have been to live through the construction and the opening of the Sydney Opera House in the mid 20th century. I imagine there was the feeling of something new and wonderful being created – not just for an elite with certain tastes and money, but for everyone.
That’s how I feel about the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania. Mona is my generation’s Opera House. You may only go there once in your life (or not at all) but it’s comforting to know that it’s there (it’s hard to miss, really, looking like an enormous hybrid cruise ship-submarine that’s crashed into the cliffs along the Derwent).
The fact that it’s even there in the first place is a kind of service. It doesn’t ask much of you except that you attend it with an open mind. Even then it doesn’t really give a fig whether you do or don’t.
Yes, there’s great food and brilliant art and the setting is incredible. It’s arguably rescued Tasmania from decline and fall, and instigated a dramatic reversal of not only fortune but tone and mood. In its wake are new boutique hotels, mom and pop Airbnb operators, baristas, craft beer bars – all the accoutrements that accompany the cultural economy. It’s the Guggenheim to Tasmania’s Bilbao.
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Brigid Delaney, Guardian
