The inside story of Australia's most exciting museum. Hailed as the most important addition to the Australian cultural landscape since the opening of the Sydney Opera House, MONA has shaken up the art world by breathing life and delight back into the museum experience. Visitors are flocking to MONA, but what is it about MONA that makes it such a transformative experience? And how on earth did an amateur private collector manage to set up one of the world's great art destinations on the edge of a remote island city? This is the inside story of how MONA came to be. With a degree of access rarely granted to others, sociologist and design expert Adrian Franklin takes readers deep behind the scenes to reveal how MONA became what it is today: from its origins on the banks of the Derwent River, to the architectural and building process, to the branding and curation. Part modern art history, part biography of a place, The Making of MONA is for readers who are as fascinated by the MONA building and experience as they are by the collection and the man behind it all. This is an extraordinary tribute to an extraordinary place, one that will allow the MONA effect to resonate for years to come. 'Much to my surprise, and thankfully, I'm rather enjoying MONA and me being put under the microscope.' David Walsh 'In Australia maybe the future has already arrived at a place that redefines the term art gallery . . .' Edmund Capon 'Gorgeously illustrated and packaged . . . Franklin's easygoing prose style polishes carefully researched history into an accessible and immensely enjoyable book.' Hobart Mercury
Taking a decade-by-decade approach, this lavishly illustrated guide to 20th-century collectibles delivers useful information in a lively and entertaining style. Each chapter provides detailed insight into a particular decade and includes two central areas of collecting from that era, whether it is ceramic bathing beauties from the 1920s, vintage clothes from the 1940s, cars from the 1950s, or Memphis design from the 1980s. Covering popular periods such as art nouveau, industrial, art deco, retro, and modern, this is an ideal companion for both serious collectors and those who want a glimpse into the world of 20th-century design.
A brave foray into the interdisciplinary and a serious attempt to cover city life in all its complexity... Franklin′s optimism about the city is refreshing. He revels in the growing human and cultural diversity and the ′re-emergence and spread of a more tolerant, carnivalesque, culture-driven city life′, and he celebrates the city′s ability to offer shelter to the unexpected and the fragile. For Franklin, the city is a product of nature, with all its vicissitudes." - Times Higher Education "Franklin writes with barely restrained optimism as he emphasizes the excitement, vitality and potential of cities. This advances the idea of city lives as assemblages of ‘human and non-human networks of texts, software, culture, behaviour, architecture, trees and gardens’... Franklin uses a wide range of sources in making his case. Historical accounts, search engine statistics and social and cultural theory are all smoothly integrated into the narrative." - Sociology Cities are more important as cultural entities than their mere function as dormitories and industrial sites. Yet, the understanding of what makes a city ′alive′ and appealing in cultural terms is still hotly contested - why are some cities so much more interesting, popular and successful than others? In this engaging discussion of ′city life′ Adrian Franklin takes the reader on a tour of contemporary western cities exploring their historical development and arguing that it is the transformative, ritual and performative qualities of successful cities that makes a difference. Here is a new urban culture characterized by ecological frames of reference; tracking the making of contemporary city life from traditional times, through early modern, machinic and modernised stages of development. Adopting dynamic narrative structures and stories to develop its critical position this book creates a vibrant synthesis of city life from its key components of leisure and tourism, recreation and play, arts and culture, nature and environment, and architecture and public space. Emphasising the importance of experience the book represents the fluid complexity of the city as a living space, an environment and a posthumanist space of transformation. It will be of interest to all those engaging with the difficulties of urban life in sociology, human geography, tourism and cultural studies.
Anti-Museum charts the development of the anti-museum as a concept and as it has been realised in practice. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the New Museum and PS1 in New York, Mona in Australia, Art42 in Paris and Donald Judd’s Marfa, the book assesses their potential to engage museum publics in new ways. Anti-museums seek to breathe relational and theatricalised vitality into the objects they exhibit, by connecting them to the contexts of their making, to their social life outside the museum, to visitors' lives via their transformative capacities for change, and by being a place of dialogue, exchange and transformation, rather than instruction. Documenting the ways in which they have been created by artists, collectors, and curators, the book also examines the extent to which anti-museums connect with other museums through the exchange of values and resources. Critically, it asks whether, after some 40 years of ‘new museology’, such institutions are still able to offer something fresh and valuable. Anti-Museum provides a sharp and incisive account of the anti-museum as it has been imagined, realised and experienced, and as it has relevance for understanding and working in the contemporary museum world. As such, the book will be of great interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of museums, cultural economy, inclusive urban regeneration, the democratisation of art and contemporary art. It should also appeal to museum professionals around the world.
This book asks the questions can `Man' be separated from `Nature'? Is it valid to seek to `control' Nature? It argues that the firm modern boundaries between nature and culture have been breached and pulls together new strands of thinking about nature which suggest that humanity and nature have never been separate. The argument is developed through a critical discussion of the Romantic ideal of pure nature, unsullied by humanity and largely confined to fragile margins in need of protection and more recent discourses which identify nature with environment, and cast man in the role of a polluter and destroyer.
Traces the complex relationship between animals and humans in Australia. Starts with the colonial period and brings us full circle to the present when native species are protected above all others.
The dramatic transformation of relationships between humans and animals in the 20th century are investigated in this fascinating and accessible book. At the beginning of this century these relationships were dominated by human needs and interests, modernization was a project which was attached to the goal of progress and animals were merely resources to be used on the path towards human fulfilment. As the century comes to an end these relationships are increasingly being subjected to criticism. We are now urged to be more sensitive and compassionate to animal needs and interests. This book focuses on social change and animals, it is concerned with how humans relate to animals and how this has changed and why. Moreover, it highlights
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.