Museum of Tasmania 2

“I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.”  This phrase sounds the death knell for the Humanities. If all viewers are equally adept, if all opinions are equally valid, if Liking matters more than heritage, then welcome to the world of modern art museum-going.

The art museum chooses to be thought-provoking. That’s fine if your idea of a good time is to look at weird images and then talk shite about them with your mates. 

The art collection of the Museum of Tasmania is free to the public, unlike the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) across the Derwent which requires AU$35 plus a ferry ride of AU$28 for a small collection. I did not visit the MONA, but that doesn’t stop me from judging it negatively. 

I joined a tour of new local art led by Jan, a former professor of Art. She pointed out that non-representative works of art could still be aesthetically gripping. Here she praises ceramic objects that are decidedly not functional. M would call them frivolous. 

These little pots reminded me of wombat scat, since several are solid shapes. 

There was an installation on film about protesters camping out to deter logging in Tasmania. They looked like quaint environmentalist hotheads, chaining themselves to trees. Tasmanian environmentalists won an important vote and court decision forbidding the damming of the River Franklin in 1982. This film was more contemporary. 

Here’s a sculpture from the Auckland Art Gallery that I thought the fiber arts lovers would appreciate. 

Finally, I had the traditional pleasure of admiring beautiful naked bodies. The abstracts in the gallery may be viewed up close, but the lovely nudes hang up high in the stairway.  Sadly, Bouguereau’s “Cupid and Psyche” is displayed too far away for the viewer to contemplate the minutiae of every curve.