Dark Mofo free shows plus Mona’s newest weird exhibits
Mona has revealed three new characteristically weird art exhibitions as we show the best free stuff on offer at Dark Mofo. SEE THE TOP 10 >>>
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DARK MOFO – THE FREE STUFF
1. Mona Up Late
A big night of art, music and fire at Mona, including after-dark access to three new exhibitions: Fiona Hall and AJ King’s Exodust – Crying Country; Jeremy Shaw’s Phase Shifting Index; and Robert Andrew’s Within An Utterance.
Mona, 6pm Saturday, June 11.
2. City of Hobart Dark Mofo Winter Feast
A sumptuous banquet. Liberate the shackles of normality and unleash the primal.
PW1 and Salamanca Lawns, June 15-19, 4pm-11pm nightly (free entry after 9pm each night, and all night Sunday).
3 Ogoh-Ogoh: The Purging
Purge your fears on to paper and offer them to this year’s Ogoh-Ogoh: a giant Tasmanian Masked Owl. Parliament Lawns, June 15-18.
Ogoh-Ogoh: The Burning. Watch the owl burn.
Procession from Parliament Lawns to the Regatta Grounds starts at 5.30pm, June 19.
4. Hiromi Tango: Rainbow Dream: Moon Rainbow
Inspired by neuroscience, artist Hiromi Tango creates an interactive space where visitors can experience the uplifting experience of being surrounded by colour.
Melville St Car Park, June 12 and June 15-20.
5 Bill Viola: Inverted Birth and Five Angels for the Millennium
Dark Mofo presents two large-scale video installations by influential American artist Bill Viola. 2-6 Collins St, June 12 and June 15-20.
6 Joel Crosswell: Anthropoid
Life-size sculptural figures gather within a barren wasteland. Enter a new world, guided by tangerine light. Site 9 (31-33 Bathurst St), June 2 and June 15-20.
7 Glossolalia
Four artists each create a distinctive yet harmonic experience through time-based media, curated by Colin Langridge and Matt Warren.
Plimsoll Gallery (37 Hunter St), June 12 and June 15-25.
8 Doug Aitken: NEW ERA
Time, space, and memory become a fluid kaleidoscope of moving image and sound in this work by acclaimed US artist Doug Aitken.
Sea Roads Shed, 16A Evans St, Hobart, June 9-12 and June 15-20.
9. Import Export: The Dark Sessions
Ben Salter presents a cross-section of Tasmanian talent including Dolphin, Liquid Nails, All The Weathers, Meres, Threats, Slag Queens and many more.
Mona, June 12–13 + June 17–20, noon-6pm (museum entry fees apply).
10. Ryoji Ikeda: Spectra
Beams of intense white light light up the skies over Mona.
Dusk until dawn, June 12 and June 17-19.
MONA’S NEW WEIRD EXHIBITS
Mona has revealed three new characteristically weird art exhibitions, each one more outlandishly extravagant than the last.
The art pieces were revealed all at once on Thursday, the biggest single unveiling spree in the museum’s history.
One of the pieces is “Phase Shifting Index” a drug-trip inspired, science-fiction-flavoured, multichannel video room that comments on the human condition.
The artist responsible, Jeremy Shaw, said he wanted viewers to enter the room and leave with many questions.
He said science-fiction was a perfect medium for this, since it allowed viewers to ponder on the possibilities of human experiences.
“Science fiction is a way I can alchemically combine religion with dance, with drugs, with hedonism, and put them on an even playing field,” Mr Shaw said.
“Wanting to somehow escape the present, whether that’s through religion or drugs, or dancing or meditations. It’s really a very human trait.”
Another exhibition was “Within an utterance”, a linguistic-based exhibition by Robert Andrew, a man who speaks in contemplative murmurs.
The piece digs deep in lutruwita/Tasmania’s Aboriginal linguistic history based with local speakers of palawa kani, a language in the process of being revived.
He said this artwork’s raw materials were “many conversations” with people from all around Australia who speak in many different tongues.
“It’s not about seeing the language or being able to read the language,” Mr Andrew said.
“It’s about putting the language back into the landscape using the tools we’ve always had.”
The most confronting exhibition is “Exodust – Crying Country”, a room-spanning multi-sensory artwork created by two renowned artists.
One of them was Fiona Hall, who was ‘quite reluctant’ to participate in Dark Mofo last year following an Aboriginal blood-soaked flag controversy.
In 2021 she handed her festival exhibition space over to Aboriginal artist AJ King and members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Hall and King have continued their collaboration in 2022 to create Exodust—Crying Country.
The piece is a burnt out-hut and ruined landscape with real charred wood with an eerie soundscape and the smell of charcoal in the air.
Ms Hall said the artwork was a reflection of a grim history, but also one of optimism for a better future.
“The work is a crying in the wilderness and the darkness for a healing, a new approach, of moving on in a positive way that’s mindful of the planet,” Ms Hall said.
“And I don’t know that I need to say anymore. I think you just need to go and experience it.”
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