A Tasmanian tribunal has ordered Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) to allow ‘persons who do not identify as ladies’ entry into its Ladies Lounge installation.
Last month, after being turned away from the installation, Jason Lau filed a lawsuit against the museum, accusing the museum of violating the state’s anti-discrimination act. Conceived by artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele, the work consists of a ‘ladies-only’ lounge, in which women are getting pampered by male butlers while being surrounded by masterpieces by the likes of Sidney Nolan and Picasso. For the artist, the work is ‘a response to the lived experience of women forbidden from entering certain spaces throughout history’, referring more specifically to their exclusion from the country’s pubs until 1965.
During the tribunal hearing in March, Kaechele and MONA’s lawyer argued that Lau had experienced the work as intended by the artist, referring to Tasmanian law which allows selective entry when ‘designed to promote equal opportunity for a group of people who are disadvantaged’. ‘The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,’ Kaechele told The Guardian at the time.
However, deputy president of the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Richard Grueber said the evidence put forward by MONA that the artwork promoted equal opportunity was ‘inconsistent’, adding ‘it is not apparent how preventing men from experiencing the art within the space of the Ladies Lounge, which is Mr Lau’s principle complaint, promotes opportunity for female artists to have work displayed’.
The museum has 28 days to decide how it wants to proceed. A spokesperson for MONA said they were very ‘disappointed’ by the decision, and would take time to ‘absorb the result’ and consider its options. However, the museum stated in the hearing that if they were ordered to allow men access, they would remove the Ladies Lounge as the refusal of men is the point of the work.
