I walk past the doll without giving it a second thought – I don’t even notice that it is split in two, stuffing cheerfully spilling out. It’s only when I learn that it was cut in half with the blade that reportedly beheaded Marie Antoinette that I retrace my steps, seek it out, and look at it closely. Namedropping at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is the best kind of art exhibition – enjoyable and uncomfortable in turns, with ideas and challenges that pick at the way you see the world and then follow you out of the building.
Shared Fate (Oliver) , 1998, by Cornelia Parker. Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London. Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford At the heart of everything on display is the idea of association – how being linked to a celebrity or a scandal or a historic event can elevate or diminish an object’s (or a person’s) worth.
If I write out the lyrics to Starman , that’s just words on a page that anyone would be happy to scrunch up and put in the bin. Written out by the songwriter David Bowie himself, however, and marked up with corrections and changes – that’s different. To a visitor to this exhibition, it’s worth pausing over and having a discussion about.
To Mona owner David Walsh , it’s worth paying $339,000 to display it in his museum. I pass a puffer vest in a frame, a book in a cabinet and a partially disassembled chandelier. They’re of visual interest, sure, but it’s the fact that the puffer jacket ( Power Ve.
