WHY I DO WHAT I DO
MONA founder David Walsh has explained the motivation behind creating his Mona gallery — saying it was all really about him showing off. “You’ve heard the phrase come upstairs and see my etchings? Mona is very much come downstairs and see my etchings,” Walsh said yesterday. “But because I’m a talentless git I have to get a series of individuals to create something worth having, or worth presenting, or worth indulging.” In a conversation at the launch of the new exhibition ZERO at the Berriedale gallery, Walsh also dealt with concerns the gallery was losing money — saying that it was his intention it would be a lasting legacy. “The museum is at the moment not profitable but it is not — and I say this with some certainty — is not an act of philanthropy,” Walsh, pictured, said. “If I could build this thing and entertain a few hundred thousand people a year and do something for the local economy ... that would be great. But what would be a damn sight greater would be to have other richer more avaricious folks than me say: ‘Oh he did that with his money and he created a bit of a reputation and also he made some bucks.’ Then these ... things would be built all over the world, and that’d be damn cool.” Mona’s Dark Mofo festival kicks off today, with a conversation featuring Walsh at the Odeon Theatre.
PLENTY of dark and dangerous thoughts will be discussed at Dark Mofo today — but it's the festival’s glowing red inverted crosses that have really got people talking.
Three 20m-high crosses have been erected across the Hobart waterfront this week, to mark the path between next week’s Winter Feast at PW1 and the Dark Park art playground at Macquarie Point. And the fact that the crosses are upside down has sparked heated debate, particularly among Christian groups, over their merit and message.
Mona owner David Walsh weighed into the cross controversy yesterday, at a media preview of his museum’s new ZERO exhibition.
“Firstly, St Peter was crucified upside down,” Walsh explained. “Why? Because he didn’t want to be like Jesus. So maybe all the churches that have up-the-right-way crosses are blasphemers.
“Or, alternatively, it’s reasonable to contend that we are at the other side of the earth to Jerusalem, so if you map them, they’re actually the same way up.”
Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said the festival had been “exploring ancient mythology and religious themes” since it started in 2013.
“The cross is a powerful and deeply significant historical symbol, that has been used for thousands of years, with many cross-cultural meanings,” he said.
“For many, this symbol evokes an emotional response for reasons that we don’t fully understand.
“While we respect and understand different interpretations, we cannot be responsi- ble for attitudes that people bring to the festival.”
After Canadian Inuk throat-singer and indigenous activist Tanya Tagaq performed last night, as a number of art exhibitions also opened across the city, today will see the start of Dark Mofo’s Dark and Dangerous Thoughts symposium of literature, film and ideas at the Odeon Theatre.
A series of panel discussions will take place between 9am and 4pm, on topics including asylum seekers and refugees, animal rights, and indigenous incarceration.
Speakers will include Mr Walsh, businessman Dick Smith, Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome, elite Australian soldier Mark Donaldson, indigenous actor and former prisoner Jack Charles, animal rights lawyer Shatha Hamade, and cultural hunting rights proponent Emma Lee.
Mr Walsh also revealed work could start on Mona’s $300 million, 172-room HoMo hotel in the next 12 months … but there’s just one catch.
“The designs are spectacular and resolved, we’ve got a good architect,” he said. “But we can’t pay for it.
“It’s quite likely that something will commence being constructed about May next year, and will take about three years. It could be good, it could be great, it could be terrible. Without the capacity for it to be terrible, it won’t be interesting. Because there is only risk in merit, and most merit is in risk.”