MONA Experience.

Too often there is a extent of preceding knowledge that founds, or frames a gallery visit: that haughty friend’s opinion on the latest show, given too freely; the local newspaper article that explains away the magic; or the insider curatorial gossip overheard and spread to become public, true or not. What we know prior to our seeing a show is the filter through which we experience the art on display. Our experience of the works/the gallery space has been corrupted therefore – our reaction will always refer back to the trivial preceding knowledge and be interpreted through those veils.  Often, I find the shows that I get the most out of are those that I have forced myself to remain objective about before viewing. Criticality of the work on display, it could be fair to say, is best left until after experiencing the show in its entirety – that is to say, both the gallery space itself, as well as the art works. 

In this regard, I count myself lucky in my first visit to MONA in Hobart. Ignorant as it may be, I was not privy to the hyped build-up of its opening, the many years of costly construction, nor was I afflicted with curiosity into the gambling fortune of its founder, or any gossip published about him.  I simply went there.  It will long stand as the best gallery experience I’ve had.
In this case, it is important to say, I speak more of ‘experience’ as an inner/personal/true involvement; an authentic imprint made on first interpretation of a piece of art or gallery space.
From the very first step inside, it is evident that MONA intends to subvert what is generally accepted as a ‘gallery experience’. The “O”—an iphone-like device—is your personal guide. You descend into the raw sandstone, carved away and left untreated; the scarred walls loom over you as you enter the gallery space.  There are no didactics on the walls, instead the “O” senses where you are in the gallery and lists the works around you, explaining them to varying degree. With sub-headings to each work that include essays about the artist, or alternately you could view the “Art Wank” (as one sub-heading is titled) surrounding each piece. 

It feels as a treasure hunt is to children – often rooms are nearly hidden, the use of black walls and dim lighting means many people walk to empty corners of the rooms expecting hidden nooks (or a way out).  To draw back to the notion of experience, however, I particularly want to focus on one room of the MONA. This room - to which entry is gained by walking down a long, dark (red velvet-lined) hallway - can effectively be seen as an entrance into the body. This is a space where the visceral, abject, lewd, and grotesque are key. The non-traditional approach to displaying each work in this space brings about different interpretations. The work of Jenny Saville, for example, I have always held in the highest regard (bias as I may be, as a figurative painter), though I had never considered it would be hung on a red velvet wall. Having the deep cadmium red in her painting of flesh peaked by its contrast against a white wall is conditioned in my mind as staple display, the safe white walls. Nevertheless, in this case, Saville’s work Matrix(1999) has only been intensified. The figure lays back into the velvet, the dim lights catch both the paint’s application as well as the subject matter with subtly that causes a sense of an invasive view onto the figure. Rather than when presenting the figure as unyieldingly to the viewer in full light, there here occurs a shift in interpretation due to this withholding of the ‘sterile white’ which therein causes the figure’s gaze to become reticent and the experience of the work therefore altered. It becomes private, and you, a voyeur. 

Fig.1. Jenny Saville, Matrix, 1999.

The works Blutclip(1993) and Pickelporno(1992) by Pipilotti Rist are also altered slightly by being projected onto the ceiling, rather than a wall. The sound from Pickelporno is freely running, and fills the space with a sense of dark anticipation. To watch the video works, there are beanbags below the screens. Almost lying down, being swallowed by these beanbags, you are rooted in your place, undivided witness to the screens. On the floor, there is a sense of being below the eye line of the other visitors around you – you can experience the work unencumbered, there is a sense of being unseen by others. 

Fig.2. Pipilotti  Rist, Blutclip, 1992.

Possibly though, this sense of privacy is afforded to you by the ‘tech isolation’ of each person being plugged into an “O”.  There is a lot to be said for being plugged into an electronic device and how it, too, can alter the experience of an artwork.  In this room, to watch each person walk around in this way—plugged in—it felt almost like a taboo version of TATE Liverpool’s “Sculpture Remixed”, where Wayne Hemmingway and his son curated a show of classical sculpture that had a disco dance floor as a centre point, and compulsory headphones, pumping sweet disco tunes, upon entry. In the same way, everything is silent yet charged within this room of MONA. Being in this tech bubble, each person is allowed, in their own way, to experience the art works – to read what they like and to indicate on their “O” whether they ‘loved’ or ‘hated’ each work (a vote they are able recall online at a later date). After spending an hour in this visceral velvet room, I walked into the next room; but that, you’ll have to experience for yourselves.

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Sources:

Fig 1.

Saville, Jenny Matrix 1999, image, viewed 12^th September 2011.
Source: <http://www.wmagazine.com/w/blogs/editorsblog/2011/04/21/monanism-mona-tasmania.html>

Fig 2.
Rist, Pipilotti Blutclip 1992, image, viewed 12^th September 2011.
Source:
< http://mona.net.au/theo/>

INFO: TATE Liverpool, THIS IS SCULPTURE

http://blog.antorra.com/this-is-sculpture-at-the-tate-liverpool/