Outside-the-box art pulls crowds to out-of-the-way Hobart

Aug 2, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Sydney - Build it and they will come. That was the belief of Australian millionaire David Walsh when he set out to establish a private art gallery in his Hobart hometown.

In its first six months, the Museum of Old and New Art counted 220,000 patrons, close to half of them visitors to the island of Tasmania.

The 50-year-old gambling tycoon has invested 150 million Australian dollars (160 million US dollars) in the building on the banks of the Derwent River and what is inside it.

Currently, entry is free. By the end of the year, Walsh will be asking visitors for a contribution to the upkeep of what has become the biggest tourist attraction in Hobart, the smallest of Australia's six state capitals.

Some of the money for this private indulgence was raised at the Wrest Point Casino, at the base of Hobart's Mount Wellington.

Walsh has described himself as a 'rich wanker' and a 'rabid atheist.' He reckons the museum, which opened in January, is helping to extend Hobart's appeal.

'I think there's going to be 20 or 30,000 more people coming to Hobart just to see this,' he said. 'People said they had never been to an art gallery before and they were loving it. That's good. That's better than a professional critic for me.'

The museum, a ferry-trip from the centre of town, is next to a winery and chocolate factory.

Unlike public galleries, it is a monument to one person's taste in art. It is, as Walsh says, a 'personal fiefdom' where the university drop-out himself decides what is on show.

There are works from Ancient Egypt as well as modern pieces from the likes of British artist Damien Hirst. Some exhibits are deliberately provocative.

'I want people to write letters to the paper,' he said. 'I want people to decry the loss of the moral fabric of our community. I want people to rail against the loss of our Christian beliefs.'

A favourite installation is by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, who is famous for tattooing pigs and building huge, Meccano-like structures. It is the Cloaca machine, replicating the human digestive system by taking two meals a day and dumping the effluent from them once a day.

The collection is intended to shock and surprise rather than soothe. As one recent visitor remarked: 'There are no maps, no labels, no chronology. But through a tunnel and round a gloomy bend there, at last, were the stairs. We climbed and found ourselves in daylight. Mount Wellington never looked better.'