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All Australia Berriedale Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)
AO Edited

Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)

This controversial museum includes such detested exhibits as a chocolate suicide bomber and fecal-smelling digestion machine.

Berriedale, Australia

Added By
Lew Blank
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Cloaca machine at MONA   peter boer / CC BY-SA 2.0
Wooden wigwams at MONA   Michael Coghlan / CC BY-SA 2.0
White library   Wiki ian / CC BY-SA 3.0
Large snake-like wave   Ian Cochrane / CC BY-SA 2.0
Modern art car   Ian Cochrane / CC BY-SA 2.0
Intricately-designed truck   Gavin Anderson / CC BY-SA 2.0
250 million year old wall to promote evolution and atheism   Rob Taylor / CC BY 2.0
Twisting staircase at MONA   Rob Taylor / CC BY 2.0
Ferry entrance to MONA   Michael Coghlan / CC BY-SA 2.0
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
MONA Art   movesbrit / Atlas Obscura User
James Turrell Amarna   mrandyjryan / Atlas Obscura User
James Turrell   mrandyjryan / Atlas Obscura User
James Turrell Amarna   mrandyjryan / Atlas Obscura User
Siloam   mrandyjryan / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
Ryoji Ikeda’s spectra, MONA 2019   Kris McCracken / Atlas Obscura User
Entrance to Faro Restaurant   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
20:50 (1987) by Richard Wilson   Kris McCracken / Atlas Obscura User
Cool tunnels everywhere!   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
Cool art everywhere!   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
Cunt wall (as the artist calls it!)   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
See what you really look like!   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
Leather tank   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
Shit machine!   lgarnick / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
  Collector of Experiences / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Opening on January 21, 2011, and built into a cliffside in southern Tasmania, the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is a four-story collection of some of the crudest and bizarre sculptures and machines imaginable. MONA is often referred to as the “Temple of Weird” and dubbed “subversive adult Disneyland” by the museum’s founder David Walsh. 

Nearly every exhibit at MONA is bizarre or controversial. This peculiar art includes a suicide bomber made out of chocolate, molds of female genitalia of real women, a 250 million-year-old sandstone wall used by Walsh to promote evolution and atheism, and a “rain-painting machine” that uses 128 computer-controlled nozzles to spell out a daily-selected phrase with water.

An oddly placed tennis court leads to the museum’s mirror-covered entrance. As visitors approach the museum, they hold their noses and complain of a fecal smell, asking if there was a sewage leak at the museum. They’ll soon find out, after entering the museum, that the smell is from MONA’s cloaca machine, named after the excretory opening found in many animals. Known as the “shit machine,” the ingenious contraption dumps piles of food into a funnel and passes it through six giant tanks to mimic the process of digestion. In the end, the cloaca machine produces a stinky heap of fecal matter, making it the most hated exhibit in the entire building.

For those who love the Museum of Old and New Art, however, the "Eternity" membership package would be of great interest, offering visitors not only lifetime admission but the after-death opportunity to display their ashes in urns for all to see.

Related Tags

Museums Art Religion Machines Sacred Spaces

Know Before You Go

Your museum entry ticket gets you in the door and lets you explore the general collection and the farthest reaches of David’s lounge room (some artworks require a separate ticket).

Community Contributors

Added By

lewblank

Edited By

allana, movesbrit, Kris McCracken, Collector of Experiences...

  • allana
  • movesbrit
  • Kris McCracken
  • Collector of Experiences
  • lgarnick
  • mrandyjryan

Published

January 6, 2017

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Sources
  • http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2015/02/mona_tasmania_s_biggest_tourist_draw_is_a_controversial_museum_featuring.html
  • http://travel.cnn.com/sydney/visit/mona-worlds-most-far-out-museum-519376/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walsh_(art_collector)
  • https://mona.net.au
  • https://britonthemove.com/hobart-tasmania/
Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)
655 Main Rd
Berriedale
Australia
-42.812702, 147.261341
Visit Website
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