Where men barge into a ladies lounge

Is nowhere to be free from the lecherous gaze of men? asked Jenna Price. A court has ruled that Ladies Lounge, an art installation at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art, must open its doors to men. Artist Kirsha Kaechele conceived the work as a lavish side space where those who identify as women can enjoy the museum’s choicest artworks, including Picassos, while being served champagne by male waiters. These paintings are off-limits to men. When New South Wales man Jason Lau sued, saying he was being discriminated against by being kept out of the room, the artist simply laughed. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge,” she

said, “their experience of rejection is the artwork.” The point was to underscore the historic exclusion of women from galleries—indeed, from all public spaces. Before 1965, an Australian woman wasn’t even allowed to go into the local pub for a drink. Kaechele’s restricted-access room was supposed “to show men what it was like to be a woman—and Lau didn’t get it and didn’t like it.” Worse, the satire of the artwork sailed over the heads of the judges, and they sided with him. Now, of course, MONA will close the installation: If it does not exclude men, it has no point. “What’s that old saying about the law being an ass?”