Dark Mofo festival provides plenty to talk about
PLENTY of dark and dangerous thoughts will be discussed at Dark Mofo — but it’s the festival’s glowing red inverted crosses that have really got people talking.
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PLENTY of dark and dangerous thoughts will be discussed at Dark Mofo — but it’s the festival’s glowing red inverted crosses that have really got people talking.
Three 20m-high crosses have been erected across the Hobart waterfront this week, to mark the path between next week’s Winter Feast at PW1 and the Dark Park art playground at Macquarie Point. And the fact that the crosses are upside down has sparked heated debate, particularly among Christian groups, over their merit and message.
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Mona owner David Walsh weighed into the cross controversy, at a media preview of his museum’s new ZERO exhibition (see below).
“Firstly, St Peter was crucified upside down,” Walsh explained. “Why? Because he didn’t want to be like Jesus. So maybe all the churches that have up-the-right-way crosses are blasphemers.
“Or, alternatively, it’s reasonable to contend that we are at the other side of the earth to Jerusalem, so if you map them, they’re actually the same way up.”
Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said the festival had been “exploring ancient mythology and religious themes” since it started in 2013.
“The cross is a powerful and deeply significant historical symbol, that has been used for thousands of years, with many cross-cultural meanings,” he said. “For many, this symbol evokes an emotional response for reasons that we don’t fully understand.
“While we respect and understand different interpretations, we cannot be responsible for attitudes that people bring to the festival.”
After Canadian Inuk throat-singer and indigenous activist Tanya Tagaq performed on Friday night, as a number of art exhibitions also opened across the city, Saturday will see the start of Dark Mofo’s Dark and Dangerous Thoughts symposium of literature, film and ideas at the Odeon Theatre.
A series of panel discussions will take place between 9am and 4pm, on topics including asylum seekers and refugees, animal rights, and indigenous incarceration.
Speakers will include David Walsh, businessman Dick Smith, Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome, elite Australian soldier Mark Donaldson, indigenous actor and former prisoner Jack Charles, animal rights lawyer Shatha Hamade, and cultural hunting rights proponent Emma Lee.
Thousands set to converge on Mona
THOUSANDS of Dark Mofos will descend on Mona on Saturday night — and it’s all for ZERO.
About 4300 free tickets were originally made available for the grand opening party of the museum’s new major exhibition, ZERO. Those tickets were quickly snapped up by keen patrons, but people who missed out will now be able to secure tickets at the door (subject to capacity) — meaning the crowd figure is likely to be much higher.
And they’re sure to be captivated by ZERO, which showcases the work of an influential yet often overlooked art movement founded in post-war Germany.
Based around the theme of “vibration”, the exhibition brings the work of the Zero movement’s leading artists — including the likes of Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, plus artists from Italy, Switzerland, Venezuela and Japan — together in Australia for the first time.
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Guest curator Mattijs Visser, the founding director of the international Zero foundation, said Zero is “one of the most significant, yet largely forgotten, art movements since World War II”.
“Internationally, Zero has had a major influence on contemporary artists and curators,” he said.
“There is no highlights [in the exhibition]. There is a beginning and an end. It’s one adventure. So there is no highlights, just one flow.”
Mona owner David Walsh said ZERO was “visual without being anti-intellectual”.
“It’s more visual than intellectual, which is a nice place to be,” he said.
“It’s an easy place — a lot of the stuff we’ve done has been a little bit more difficult than this.
“I’m absolutely flummoxed, stupefied and delighted that Mattijs could put it together in the nine months he had. It’s a bloody triumph.”
Featuring live performances by space-jazz legends Sun Ra Arkestra and electric string quartet FourPlay, the ZERO Grand Opening runs from 6-10pm.
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