Friday 9 January 2015

no labels but lots of logo



One of MONA’s deliberate anarchies is to not label the work. Instead if you want you can hook up with iPods and/or headphones (the O guide) and learn about the art as you go; from a series of different voices, including Walsh’s own reasons for buying a piece. However, the project is supported by a large amount of written material – Monanisms, the catalogue for the opening show; the Making of MONA about the whole project; and David Walsh’s memoir A Bone of Fact. We may not be given ‘proper’ art-gallery-type instructions about how to read the art (who made it, when, what out of, where and in what context) but there is a tremendous amount of post-modern, post-everything ‘stuff’ which surrounds the collection, infused by all the irony, partiality, cleverness, and witty asides one has come to expect. How long this will seem ‘on-trend’ rather than deeply dated waits to be seen.

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