Hobart, Tasmania: MONA

Okay, here's the deal with MONA. You take a ferry or bus there. Take the ferry. It's worth it. It will not be cheap. You will think, why am I spending this money to go to a museum? Trust me! It's so worth it. We got there at 3 and could have spent the WHOLE day there. I loved this place. It's irreverent. It's interesting. The branding is spectacular. The copy on all the brochures is amazing. I have no background whatsoever in art and I SO WANT to work there.

Also, when we got there, there was ANOTHER market outside MONA. You could taste wine and whiskey--on another note, Tasmanian whiskey is delightful, but it costs hundreds of dollars a bottle. Not worth it. Laughably expensive. It's quite nice--just not $250 a bottle nice.

Here's the ferry dock leaving Hobart for MONA (about a 20-minute ferry ride).

Us at the market outside MONA.

 Views from the ferry:

Approaching MONA -- eek, Justin's shirt:

It's a relaxing ride:

They reserved my parking spot:

Why did I love MONA so much? It took itself as seriously as you wanted it to take itself. You arrive and you get an iPod and headphones. You can hit a button and the GPS in your ipod will show you the art that's nearby (this could have worked a little better, I thought. Sometimes I'd see the art on the iPOd and not be able to find it. Or sometimes I'd see the art and not be able to find it on the iPod). The iPod allowed you to learn more about the art--it was a whole interactive piece where you could like or unlike it, see what others said about it, hear interviews with the artist or read and heat reviews. It was really, really engaging. I wish all museums did this.

The whole place is incredibly intense and thought-provoking. I wonder if anyone comes here on a first date and what you do with that.

And what was so cool was the juxtaposition. You'd see a sarcophagus next to a video installation. But it wasn't all higgeldy-piggeldy random--each exhibit had a theme.

This was one of my favorites, the fat Porsche:

Also, this:

The building has three levels. You take the elevator down to the lowest level, so you are in this subterranean space.  This was one of the first installations we saw. The background is sandstone, which is what many of the buildings in Hobart are made from. The noise is water.

Truly, we could have spent all day in here. I regret not earmarking an entire day to do so.