Museum of Old and New Art, TasmaniaFramed as an exploration of why we prize fame, this sprawling, defensive exhibition is overshadowed by one man’s quest for status via his museum
The Holden Torana – which Mona says ‘makes the point about namedropping and status better than most of the art in this exhibition’ – behind Filet-O-Fish by Darren Sylvester.The Holden Torana – which Mona says ‘makes the point about namedropping and status better than most of the art in this exhibition’ – behind Filet-O-Fish by Darren Sylvester.
I just listened to Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. As music, it’s good. As art, it’s truly greatOne of the first things you see as you walk into Namedropping is the bonnet of a black 1977 Holden Torana. The handsome beast is displayed inside a man cave, complete with a nudie calendar and Walsh’s shiny Order of Australia on the wall nearby. According to Mona’s own description, this Torana “makes the point about namedropping and status better than most of the art in this exhibition”.
Other works’ significance emerge only in the telling, which Mona always tells very well. The gallery doesn’t do wall panels; instead it has an app, the O, which matches your location in the gallery to nearby works. This allows Mona to do two things: light everything like a Berlin club, and tell you at length about the creation and provenance and gossip behind a work, all of which is very fun. This is how you learn that Danh Vo’s 16:32, 26.
Some of the reasoning feels thin. Is it really “namedropping” because a now-famous artist decided to paint a now-famous person and a gallery bought it? Does what we stop to look at in Namedropping say something about us, as Mona posits? The answer to both questions is: well, yes – and?Tom Sachs’ bronze Hello Kitty and a leopard-skin coat from the 1960s, made to copy one owned by Jacqueline Kennedy.
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