'The impression is not so much a museum as an immersive art destination doubling as a rich man’s lair with his eclectic accumulation of the vulgar and the remarkable.'⁠ ⁠ MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, is the brainchild of David Walsh, an Australian gambling mogul and art collector. ⁠ ⁠ Dug three floors down in the sandstone beneath Walsh's houses on the outskirts of Hobart, Tasmania, MONA opened in 2011 and currently displays 300 works from Walsh's 3000-strong collection. ⁠ ⁠ Attracting more than 4mn visitors since its inception, works are displayed in 'rooms sometimes more like caves, often in deep gloom, connected with tunnels and walkways.' ⁠ ⁠ MONA is traditionally antithetical, which befits its unusual surrounds. Sex and death are often said to be unifying themes in a collection that spans a dizzying array of styles, ideas and textures. Four immersive light installations by James Turrell exist alongside a wall of vulvas by Greg Taylor and Belgian neoconceptualist Wim Delvoye's bizarre faeces-making machine 'Cloaca Professional' (2010).⁠ ⁠⁠ 'I hope [Mona] is the expression of a different hypothesis,' says Walsh. 'It can be much more performative and much more tongue-in-cheek because there is no moral imperative behind it.'⁠ ⁠ Head to the link in our bio to read the full article ⁠ .⁠ .⁠ .⁠ .⁠ 📸 Mona’s Pharos wing, featuring ‘Unseen Seen’ (2017) by James Turrell © Mona/Jesse Hunniford; David Walsh, founder of Mona © Mona/Jesse Hunniford; tunnels lead between underground chambers and galleries © Mona/Jesse Hunniford; James Turrell’s ‘Armana’ (2015) at Mona © Mona/Rémi Chauvin⁠ #ft #ftweekend #financialtimes #art #mona #gallery #davidwalsh