Hailed as the most important cultural event since the opening of the Sydney Opera House, the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania seemingly made very substantial changes to visitor experiences of an art gallery, catalysed a significant cultural florescence in Hobart and achieved tourism-led urban and regional regeneration on a par with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Drawing on a large survey of visitors this article illuminates the origins, social aims and impacts of successful attempts to push art museums beyond what Hanquinet and Savage call ‘educative leisure’. It contributes to our knowledge of the processes by which traditional forms of ‘highbrow’ cultural experience associated with the dominance of the classical and historical canon are being eclipsed by newer, performative, emotional and sensual forms of cultural taste.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	anti-museum, art, art museum experience, Mona (Museum of Old and New Art), museology, sociology of art
Research Division:	Human Society
Research Group:	Sociology
Research Field:	Social change
Objective Division:	Culture and Society
Objective Group:	Arts
Objective Field:	The creative arts
UTAS Author:	Franklin, A (Professor Adrian Franklin)
ID Code:	117342
Year Published:	2017
Web of Science® Times Cited:	15
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Social Sciences
Deposited On:	2017-06-08
Last Modified:	2018-03-27
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