WEBVTT - Getting nude at ‘subversive’ arts fest Dark Mofo 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.560 From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:15.880 I'm Claire Harvey. Contemporary art is all about pushing boundaries. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.000 Someone's going to love it, everything about it is so wonderful. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.720 Someone's going to think it's garbage. I don't think I'll 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:24.239 be got. 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.840 And then the conversation the publicity can become bigger than 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:29.960 the art itself. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:32.040 Dark Mofo is. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.680 The brainchild of David Walsh, the founder of Hobart's Museum 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.240 of Old and New Art, and his mates Lee Carmichael 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.080 and Brian Ritchie. They seem to understand this principle better 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:47.680 than anyone. Their annual Tasmanian Festival, a celebration of darkness, 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.839 has gone from edgy to all grown up. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.880 So does it still have the power to shock? 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:08.800 And why does everyone love getting nude at Dark Mofo. 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.760 David Walsh, a professional gambler turned art magnate, has transformed 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.240 tourism in Tasmania. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.080 Dark Mofo is back some fantastic news for our tourism 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.199 and hospitality industry by. 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:28.280 Luring huge crowds to his subversive adult disneyland, a gallery 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.240 in Hobart called Mona. According to one of his collaborators 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.120 Lee Carmichael. There's one thing Walsh doesn't like, spending money 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:41.480 on marketing. Mona lures hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.919 but there used to be a winter loll when Hobart's 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.800 cold and generally miserable winter kept the tourists away. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.120 So Walsh, Carmichael and their. 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:56.160 Offsider Brian Ritchie, the bassist from the Violent Femmes by 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.480 the Way, took ninety percent of their advertising budget and 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.520 threw a party. It is very noisy, but that noisy 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.040 to here is all part of attracting the evil spirits 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:08.959 and then burning them in order to start a new 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:16.040 life free of evil, not just any party a backenal 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:22.200 that turns the city into a pagan playground. Tim Douglas 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.960 is the editor of The Australians Review Arts and Culture section. 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.280 The Dark Mofo Festival sets out to be provocative, which 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:36.360 is an interesting choice, isn't it for a state which 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.399 is probably regarded by the rest of Australia as relatively conservative. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.040 Yet the choice of a festival is to be as 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:45.639 troublemaking as possible. 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:46.640 Is that fair? 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:51.519 Absolutely fair? David Walsh is nothing if not an gen provocateur. 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.320 The idea to make it as edgy as possible was 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.919 certainly a conscious one and it's paid off. It has 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.200 really changed the face of not only Tasmanian tourism, but 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.079 midwinter tourism in that state. At the beginning, it was 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:11.560 basically all funded by David Walsh. They eventually got some 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.480 government funding and then they had some commercial funding. They 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.840 ended up scrapping that commercial funding about twenty fifteen or 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.320 sixteen because they felt like they were being creatively compromised 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.880 by those commercial imperatives. Now do they go out of 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.640 their way every year to program something provocative? You'd have 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.239 to say yes, I mean this year is another great example. 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.440 Nathan Maynard's work called they threw Us down the rocks 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.920 like they did with the sheep, a verbatim quote from 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.840 a police report in the nineteenth century about the murder 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:51.560 of some indigenous people. This work by Maynard includes four 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.640 hundred and eighty decapitated sheep in formaldehyde, which is a 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:59.560 comment on the way indigenous remains have been fetishized and 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.440 kept in private museums around the world. Now, that was 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.400 the first programming venture for this year. They a ounce 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:13.840 obviously hoping to capitalize on media attention. Tasmania, as we know, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.400 has a very complicated relationship with its indigenous past, and 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.480 in fact, this work didn't go down particularly well with 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.920 a lot of indigenous people. There were some people who 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.760 came out and said dark Mofo has some sick fetish 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:30.520 with indigenous pain. So I'm not sure it worked entirely 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.200 in their favor during the initial launch a few months ago. 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.640 But the first weekend has apparently gone off without a hitch, 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.160 and there's plenty of other dark things to come over 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:41.160 the next week and a half. 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.560 Presumably the artist's intention was to shock people who wear 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.520 twin sets and pearls and not your art crowd, not 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.360 necessarily to shock the people whose narrative he was trying 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:59.120 to amplify. And that reference to dark Mofo having a 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.960 fetish with indigenou pain, that's a reference to a twenty 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.600 twenty two work, isn't it That caused a big controversy. 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:05.279 It did. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.480 Santiago Sierra called on Indigenous Tasmanians to donate their blood, 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.039 which would be collected in a vessel into which the 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:16.880 Union Flag would be doused. 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.960 The work was called Union Flag. It caused a huge storm. 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.359 Aboriginal people have spilt way too much blood over the 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:26.599 past two hundred years. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:28.480 We don't feel like we need to bleed in. 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:36.400 The festival almost shut down. Lee Carmichael was hounded personally. 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.640 I know that he had a very tough time trying 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.120 to navigate those waters. The festival eventually seated and said, look, 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.520 we made a mistake. They embarked on a six month 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.760 program of Indigenous education for their. 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.040 Staff and for the festival itself, But. 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.800 In so doing many people wondered whether they'd actually compromised 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.080 the integrity of their original vision, which was to be 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.520 as edgy as possible and as unapologetically artistic as it 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.680 was originally conceived to be. And people wondered whether Dark 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.039 Mofo would shift to that place it fears the very most, 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:15.880 the middle. 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.080 I'm interested in some of the works this year. One 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:24.840 where an artist is staging ahead on car crash at 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.040 what seems to me like great risk to her personal safety. 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:28.880 Absolutely so. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:33.880 Paula Garcia, Brazilian artist and probably the best known student 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:41.719 of the world's foremost performance artist, Marina Abramovich. She drives 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:46.040 headlong into another car driven by a stunt driver. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.000 Now it's not as simple. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.839 As that they circle each other in this sort of 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.440 centrifugal motion for ninety minutes until that tension builds and 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.560 they eventually slam into each other. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.800 It's called body crash. 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:03.799 The idea behind that work was that she was sitting 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:05.640 on a bus and she wondered what it would be 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.679 like to be covered in the armor of the bus 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.760 and to have herself magnetically dragged into another object. 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.560 The other question when it comes to provocative art is 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.239 about privilege and who gets to provoke. This is someone 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.559 who has never been in her head on car crash 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.400 that she didn't choose to be in. Presumably survivors of 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.280 head on car crashes who've had their lives destroyed or 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.320 seen other people's lives destroyed would not think it was 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.120 amusing or an artistic endeavor. 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.560 No, I wouldn't think so. But perhaps in the moment 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:36.880 it was. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.400 Maybe that tension builds to something quite dramatic and visceral. 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.320 I'm not sure it's a stunt, but it's art, or 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:45.800 maybe it's a stunt in the name of art. 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:47.520 I mean, who are we to judge? 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:49.960 Another one that I was sort of prepared to be 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.400 annoyed by but actually seems like it might have been 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:57.440 quite fun. Was using the emergency warning system, the sirens 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.840 in Hobart and the emergency messaging system to alert Hobatians 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:06.920 that there was about to be a really unavoidable performance 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:08.800 that they were going to have to listen to. 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:10.040 Yeah, that's right. 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:15.720 It's Richard Brussel, So, famed English DJM producer was tasked 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:20.640 with taking over this, as you say, emergency sonic sound system. 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.520 David Walsh is one of the only private citizens in 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.440 the world to own this technology. It's called the Genesis 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.920 three sixty x L and every state has one in 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.840 case there's a title waver, there's an earthquake. 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.120 But they got permission from. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.480 The council for half an hour last Saturday and this 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.760 Saturday to do whatever they liked, and everyone within a 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:47.040 seven kilometer radius of the Hobart CBD will find whatever 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.359 comes out of those speakers unavoidable. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.560 It's so interesting, this idea of deliberately setting out to 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.680 annoy people or to provoke in the hope that you'll 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.760 get some publicity, or to genuinely do something that you 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.320 is different and that is coming out of you in 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.760 an irrepressible way. And you could say that the works 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.360 of Turner were shocking when they were first painted, or 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.720 the music of Shostakovich that were not necessarily intending to 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.120 be provocative in what we might regard as a self 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.240 indulgent kind of dark Mofo got away. 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:22.880 What's your view about that? 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.960 Do you think art should just flow or is it 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.480 legitimate and is it art to just set out to 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:32.239 kind of get a headline. 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.280 I wouldn't suggest that that's actually what they're doing. I mean, 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.960 I do support their right to make public art. I 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.959 mean it's no more offensive really than walking past statue 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:48.200 of rodin and in a public outdoor gallery in Canberra, really, 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.080 and so I think it's really interesting, and I think 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:56.439 people in Hobart, certainly my family, love dark Moto, love 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.040 that experimental. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:58.920 Edge, and are open to it. 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:00.920 I mean, I don't thk there's any other a city 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:05.000 in the country, let alone the world, that would maybe 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.040 allow that kind of thing to happen, would allow the 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.320 inverted illuminated crosses to go up, would have allowed Mike 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.960 Parer to inter himself beneath the city's main road for 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.040 three days and have cars drive over the top of it. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.080 I mean it's just you have to hand it to 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.480 the leaders there and also the way the festival works 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.240 with the government to get these things off the ground. Look, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.760 do I think Richard Russell's work is something of great 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.840 artistic sustenance and substance? Probably not. Do I support his 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.440 right to do it? And do I think Tasmanians on 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.079 the whole, if not loved, then at least tolerate the idea. Yeah, absolutely. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:47.600 Coming up. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.839 Tim goes for a nude Solstice swim with Lee Carmichael 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.560 In twenty twenty three. Tim Douglas was in Hobart for 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.959 Dark Mofo and organized to speak with the festival's former 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.160 creative director, Lee Carmichael. But given the theme, it didn't 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.560 seem appropriate to do a normal interview in a boardroom 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:23.800 or a cafe. 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.160 And I just said, wouldn't it be great if we 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.120 did the interview naked and we did the swim together 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.560 and he was up for it, which, to be fair, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.160 no one knows me and it hasn't made it. Everyone 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.480 knows him, and so he had much more to lose. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.280 The Salsae swim has been a fixture of the festival 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.439 since it started. The water is frigid, I think it 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.319 was seven degrees last year. The first year they ran 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:56.480 it twenty thirteen, the police threatened to arrest people for 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:00.280 public indecency because they didn't have a permits to do it. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.800 It's apparently illegal to go for a nude swim in 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.640 Tasmania and the depths of winter. Such is the popularity 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.839 of it now that there's two thousand tickets, they're all 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.720 gone on the first day. Every year, we ran out 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:14.280 of towels. 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.360 This year we thought we would get a thousand people 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:18.720 and we were over one thousand. 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.320 So next year we're going to double our towels. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:23.760 But it was a really amazing moment. 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.520 You stand there in your robe, it's dark, and these 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.599 drums that go off and then these whistle blows and 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.200 we're before you know it, we're all tearing down into 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.200 the water. I managed to get a couple of questions 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.160 into Lee while we were standing there before we immersed 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.120 ourselves in the icy depths. But I felt my heart 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.000 rate drop within moments of being in the water. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:46.400 I thought I need to get out. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.640 Of course, there's some other mad lunatics who were backstroking 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.600 out in it to the pontoons. But you come back 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.480 in and everyone's kind of stands naked around these forty 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.560 four gallon drums for the fire, and it's just the 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.040 most cleansing, beautiful community moment. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:04.520 It was a really great experience. 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.400 Tim Douglas is the editor of Review, available. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.920 In the Saturday edition of The Australian and anytime at 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:22.040 the Australian dot com dot a slash review. This episode 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.440 of the Front was hosted by me Claire Harvey and 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.480 co produced with Jasper Leek, who edited the episode and also. 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.120 Wrote our theme. Thanks for joining us on the Front 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:31.600 this week. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.720 Our team also includes Kristin Amiot, Lea Sammaglue, Tiffany Dimack, 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:37.959 Joshua Burton and Stephanie Coombs.