Day 16 - Friday 8 March - MONA - Kazza's Australian Holidays

Took forever to get to sleep - stoopid restless legs, but then slept ok.

So we booked tickets for MONA the other night. Stoopid place is all about timed entries and timed ferries. But at least you can buy the tickets all together. We booked for 11am (with a 10:15 ferry) to give the sweetie time to wake up. So it was a pretty relaxed start.

Got down to the ferry terminal a bit before 10 (and saw the HMAS Hobart come in to dock!). Boarded shortly after. I managed to grab a seat outside on the port side, to give a pretty awesome view of Hobart as we departed. So that was pretty cool.

Mona catamaran MR-II

Constitution Dock from the Mona ferry

HMAS Hobart in Hobart

Tasman Bridge from the Mona ferry

Aetos cargo ship

Mona from the ferry

Got to MONA and climbed the steps and skipped doing the outside stuff (even though it looked very pretty in the sun) because people. All the people. So we just went inside and followed their suggestions of going to the bottom first and working your way up.

You really need to download their app. There's free wifi (which you need in the bowels of the mountainside) which is useful. The app is 75MB but isn't too resource intensive. And you really do need it because there's literally no labels on any of the art works anywhere in the entire place. The app does work pretty well with bluetooth location sensing, and you click on the circle and it tells you what's in range so you can click on what you're looking at for what it's about. What I ended up doing was taking a screenshot of anything I actually took a photo of, so I have a label for it later (and can go back into the app and click on Art Wank for more detail ... except.. I just tried it and you can't! Some of the menu options are just gone once you've left the site.. I guess they'd still be on the website).

So we went down to the bottom and the sweetie got a coffee and a croissant.

The Void

bit.fall by Julius Popp

Then we wandered around the bottom floor. Some very .. interesting.. displays. But there were lots of chairs and sofas and such to sit on so that was nice.

Morgue Series: New York by Stephen J Shanabrook - impressions from wounds cast in dark chocolate

Then went up a floor to B2. And nearly lost our minds because it was much more crowded and there were almost no seats anywhere on the floor. Eventually found some near the Snake so we could rest and look at the map and regroup. Then had a wander of B2.

Errata by Jean-Luc Moulene - 9 palettes of 500mL cans in 9 different colours

Me in the mirror on the roof next to the classical religious art sections

Terrestrial floor globe from Amsterdam c1645-48

Saint George and the Youth of Mytilene, mid-17th century Greece

Cloud room near the classical religious art

White library by Wilfredo Prieto

4PM by Dean Stevenson and Snake by Sidney Nolan

Cloaca Professional by Wim Delvoye

Me and Stu in Kryptos by Brigita Ozolins

Stu in Kryptos by Brigita Ozolins

Koalas at play by Lin Onus - drop bears!!

Corridor in Mona

20:50 by Richard Wilson - used sump oil!

Sternenfall / Shevirath ha Kelim Falling Stars / The Breaking of the Vessls by Anselm Kiefer

MONA is very much a choose your own adventure place which I HATE. It's far too easy to miss things. Like Wind Section Instrumental for example. You have to go down this long corridor and past the library and the toilets and up a little spiral stair case and past a whole lot of private rooms, oh, and there's an art piece. Like WTF. If you weren't actively looking to make sure you'd gone down every corridor and through every door you'd simply miss stuff. Who knows what we even missed.

Wind Section Instrumental by Cameron Robbins

We joined two virtual queues. Another thing I hate. Because you stress about not doing other things (in our case lunch) because your place in the queue might come up. In the end the queue went from an hour to half an hour to fifteen minutes to oh your place in the queue is ready in not very long at all. So we saw Obsidian but dropped out of The Confessional and never bothered to go back.

Went upstairs at Domino Time to Moorilla but even then it was still pretty crowded. Managed to find a bar stool seat and had a beer but the queue just kept getting longer to decided to go down to the Void Bar and got another drink and a pizza which was quite nice.

After lunch we carried on on B1.

Entrance to Mona

bit.code by Julius Popp

c*nts and conversations by Greg Taylor

Kantharos, Panticapaeum, Greek, c. 320-250 BCE

Fat Car by Erwin Wurm

Monkey skeleton, Europe, probably England, c 1870

Waterlily Pond by Martina Schumacher

Untitled - actual live goldfish in a bowl, by Jannis Kounellis

White House by Ai Weiwei

4PM bar and snake room

Also had a bit of a wander outside. Not sure if I saw everything (I couldn't find the house of mirrors).

Trampoline outside at Mona

Wrought Iron cement truck by Wim Delvoye

Mona - Museum of Old and New Art

Went back down to Void Bar after 16:00 to have a drink before getting on the ferry back.

Mona catamaran MR-II

Nearly last on board going back but still managed to find seats outside (and not get blown off the boat).

Tasman Bridge from the Mona ferry

Hobart from the Mona ferry

Sailing boat on the Derwent River

Posh/Plebs lines

Got back to the room and then went and did a quick shop - some stuff to go with the stinky cheese we bought the other day. Someone *just* beat us to the washing machine, so gave up on the idea of washing for the night. GPS/photos/blogging then wine and cheese - dinner of champions!! and Big Bang Theory.

Fish out of water bubbler in Elizabeth Street Mall

Day 16 - Friday 8 March - MONA

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