Chihuly is widely regarded as the most exciting and spectacular artist working in contemporary glass, credited with elevating the medium from the realm of craft to groundbreaking fine art. A prodigiously prolific artist, whose work balances content with thorough investigations in to the properties of glass, Chihuly began working with the material at a time when reverence for glass-making and technique was paramount.

It’s one of the most impressive fine art exhibitions I’ve been to in a long time and the setting reflects this. Well worth a visit and on until the end of March if you are in London at any point.

Below are a selection of the sculptures some with the names some without and if you happen to be in Sydney I recommend taking a look.

Bondi Beach

The Yearning by Margerita Sampson

Domestic Bliss by Peter Tilley

The Nail by Juan Pablo Pinto & Clary Akon

Bronte Beach

The story of how the Museum came about is almost as remarkable as the place itself. Bankrolled entirely by one man – infamous local Tasmanian David Walsh, who amassed his fortune (estimated in the billions) through gambling.

He suffers from a rare form of Asbergers syndrome, which gave him exceptional mathematical ability. By the age of 21 he had been banned from every casino in Australia for counting cards. That was just the beginning of a 20 year professional gambling career that has resulted in David becoming one of the wealthiest men in Australia, and dubbed the worlds largest gambler of all time.

Estimated to have cost near $80m, the museum is a truly amazing place. It is vast, and almost entirely underground, it’s three stories have been hacked out of solid sand stone.

Situated on a peninsular, the best way to reach it is by catching the 35 minute MONA yacht.

Once you arrive the first thing you notice is how brutal the architecture is. Almost like a Bond villains secret bunker.

As you navigate your way up the large staircase you notice the contrasting textures of the dull smooth concrete and the warm brittle sandstone.

As you reach the entrance the contrast with the rocky surfaces is deliberate and clear, the entrance is metallic, reflective and shiny, like a giant jewell.

As you enter, you are told that there are no captions, anywhere. Information is delivered exclusively through the ‘O Device’ (a customized ipod).

You then begin your decent down into the cavernous museum.

The device really is brilliant and adds so much to the overal experience. It is able to locate exactly where you are in proximity to art and gives you information through three distinctly different point of view.

The first button is IDEAS. This tells you very simply what the key ideas associated with the art / artist are.

The work above – entitled MOTH – consists of used crack cocaine paraphernalia pinned and displayed like insects in a natural history museum. The idea is explained thus…

The next is the amusingly titled ART WANK – which as you might guess is a longer copy, more conventionally descriptive opinion on the works (although still brilliantly written and very entertaining).

The third – and my personal favorite – is GONZO. Which is a mix of anecdotes and personal comments. This can often give a really interesting and hilarious insight into how / why the art was purchased and what the museum thinks of the work. Here’s an amusing anecdote about the museum refusing to change the name of the moth piece, much to the annoyance of the artist.

The whole experience was amazing. Every sense is stimulated and messed with. The collection is wonderfully none linear, with ancient egyptian treasures mixed amongst installation and modern sculpture.

After 30 minutes or so, I could understand the Disneyland reference. There was so much to see, a visual delight and an assault on the senses.

The space was largely very dark, with the work shining off the walls like neon.

There is a macabre thread running right through the heart of MONA. Featuring themes of nudity, blood, death, suicide, human genitalia and feces, it’s not for the conservative, or the easily offended.

Perhaps the most unsettling work for a lot of people would have been Cloaca by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. The work mechanically recreates the human digestive system through five tanks containing chemicals similar to the ones found in the stomach. The machine is fed twice daily through one end and produces a perfectly formed feces through the other. Our guide tells us that a select amount of these feces are sold at the artists whim for $8,ooo. The smell as you can imagine is stomach turning. A combination of sour milk and, well, shit.

In the darkest park of the Museum displayed on a solid black wall sit the casts of hundreds of vaginas, taken from a cross section of society.

Right in the middle of the black wall, sits the entrance to a brilliantly white room. The work is called untitled and features a library full of books, all completely empty…

The identity is very simple, featuring a cross for old, and a plus for new. These simple icons live everywhere, from the grass outside, to the bag tags. Designed by Melbourne graphic designer, Leigh Carmichael, it does a good job of staying respectfully quiet, allowing the personality coming through to be entirely the museums.

As we emerged from the darkened bowels of the gallery, I felt as though I had been on some sort of roller coaster. On the boat back to Hobart I couldn’t help but think how different this gallery would have been if it had been commissioned by the state government. How sanitized it would have become. The tone of voice made the experience feel unique, interesting, engaging, sharp, witty.

The whole thing felt like a wonderfully deep and elaborate joke – a joke I was never fully sure I was in on.

From the wall of vaginas, to the machine that literally makes art disappear up it’s own arse, Walsh’s playful cynicism pierces through the conventions and pomposity of every other museum I have even been to. Which is of course, perfectly Australian.

He slags off the most popular piece of art in the gallery (above) questioning if it’s too asthetically pleasing to make any sort of serious point.

Even the name of the Museum – MONA – is a Deity in Saxon mythology, and seeing as Walsh describes himself as a “rabid atheist” I couldn’t help but wonder if this was all part of the joke.

I left MONA feeling exhilarated, excited, inspired and slightly confused.

I’d take it over Disneyland any day.

Knit-bombing or Yarn-bombing depending on whereabouts you are from was shown to me today whilst I was working. I have never seen anything like it until now but I love it! I guess it’s the new form of “street art” or “graffiti art”. There isn’t really that much to say about it to be honest but I can’t see any limits on its use in public. Enjoy.

Turner Duckworth also designed a set of stamps for Royal Mail to commemorate the E-Types 50th Anniversary. Bruce Duckworth was delighted to work on such a job, himself owning a classic E-Type.

Stamps designed by Matt Lurcock

Created by French Designers Zim & Zom. Check out their other pieces of work too!

Amazing monuments in former Yugoslavia shot by Jan Kempenaers and available in a book here and at Amazon.

These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković…), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic.

Via ISO50