Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) has moved part of its collection of Picassos to a ladies’ restroom after a court ruled that displaying it in a women-only exhibition space discriminated against men . Kirsha Kaechele, the American artist who created the Ladies Lounge, is appealing the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Tascat) decision from April that found the museum to be violating the state’s anti-discriminatory law and ordered Mona to allow “persons who do not identify as ladies” to enter the exhibition. The exhibition had been closed after a man, New South Wales resident Jason Lau, sued the museum for denying him entry in April 2023.
Mona appealed to reverse the ruling, arguing that the decision took “too narrow a view on women’s historical and ongoing societal disadvantage” and that the Ladies Lounge can “promote equal opportunity”. The Ladies Lounge, inaugurated in 2020, was a women-only exhibit modelled after the misogynistic, old-fashioned Australian pubs that women were excluded from until 1965. Inside the lounge, women were served champagne by male butlers while they had a private view of artworks by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Sidney Nolan.
After the museum was sued, Ms Kaechele said she was “absolutely delighted” by the complaint, explaining that the men’s reaction to the exhibit was, in fact, the art. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she said at the time. .