MOMA, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Wow. Just wow.

Like many people, I am truly not the world's most arty person. That means in relation to both creation and observation. I would struggle to tell a Rothko from a Lego but that may be his simplicity. That said I had heard lots of interesting things about Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art. So, we decided to hit it up while we were staying with the coolest kids in Hobart, the Timsar family.

Entrancing the Entrance.

Symbolic

The strange mirrored entrance, I wonder what birds think of it....

A welded intricate industrial art.

You do need to start the right way, coffee with a view.

A light view.

When you enter, you go down three floors into the ground. You get given "The O" which is an audio/reading guide that can give you as much or as little info as you like, all in an iPhone. Seriously good stuff.

The four entrances to the temporary rooms. On the Origin of Art. It was AMAZING. With four guest curators.

Flicker art.

It explored things like art and the impact on the brain.

The brain.

Simpleton and the Brain. 

Some antiques and some antiques.

Who wouldn't like to eat from this? 

Nude archer.

I loved the lighting.

Yayoi Kusama the 80-something Japanese artist.

Modern art can be simple

Interesting

Odd.

Creative.

Just plain gross.

And depressing.

Sidney Nolan's snake.

The great digester, it creates its own poop.... art you say.

Julius Popp's Bit.fall

Is well worth it!

Modern art vs quality art

Recently the national museum had an exhibition of Mark Rothko. Now I have seen a far amount of art in my time and some I love, some I loathe and others just pass by. Many talented artists don't get realised in life because their style is too strong or too similar to others. Then of course there are times when an artist becomes famous because of who buys it. From my experience and in my opinion this doesn't make a good artist, but makes someone else a lot of money. There are many examples in the art world, in my eyes, of people who become famous through the sale phenomenon and then those that become famous because they are dead and can no longer add to the art world/collections and therfore increases their value. Which of all these categories does Mr Rothko fit into?

For me the sentence about Mozart sums it up. As long as you stop after the word genius.

A bunch of painting bloks and one lady.

When Rothko tried to paint things that exist. You can see his imbalanced nature of perspective.

I think this man and his posture sum up what many people think of Rothko.

I think that Rothko is a poor excuse for a painter, one of those people that was launched by having a tight knit ex-pat group around him and an early influential purchaser of his paintings in the name of Guggenheim. A trend setter will help. There is a message to all struggling artists, find a trend setter and pester them enough to buy your paintings and display them, and you are on easy street. It is also quite evident that Rothko had deteriorating eyesight and could never do fine or detailed work and I guess big slabs of square colours sums up his skill in my eyes, especially that it is ironically called multiforms.

Instead I would prefer people to enjoy the old Masters, full of rich details and livery it is, to me, what art is about. Luckily the National Museum has a good collection of these too, so I pottered off there instead. It is much more fun to see and details are abound.

So many old masters loved dogs.

more dogs

A cow that thinks it is bread

A disappointed cow?

Warsaw rooftops.

The newly refurbished/rearranged National Museum.

Leaving disappointed by the looks of it.

Some night painting from me.

night painting

I like this.

And off on some public transport. Homeward bound.