Australian Museum Faces Lawsuit for Artwork That Men Cannot Enter

Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is facing a lawsuit for exhibiting an artist’s Ladies Lounge installation that only allows women to enter the installation.

The installation by Kirsha Kaechele refers to a moment in Australian history before women won the right to drink in the nation’s pubs in 1965. Until then, women were either relegated to side rooms, where they were charged exorbitantly, or barred from these kinds of establishments altogether.

Intended to point out the hypocrisy, the Mona installation offers an opulent retreat for female guests only with champagne served by male butlers. The exhibition also features some of the museum’s most notable works by such artists as Picasso to Sidney Nolan.

Kaechele told the BBC it is an “essential space for perspective and reset from this strange and disjointed world of male domination.”

At least one visitor, however, has not taken kindly to show. New South Wales resident Jason Lau is suing the museum for discrimination. While visiting Mona last April, Lau paid $35 AUD ($23 USD) for a museum ticket, but he could not view Ladies Lounge. He claims it breaches the state’s anti-discrimination act.

Though the museum agrees that the show disallows certain visitors from entering the installation, a spokesperson argued that Lau experienced the work as intended.

“Part of the experience is being denied something that is desired,” Catherine Scott, Mona’s counsel, told the Mercury, a local publication.

The law allows for discrimination, Scott said, if “designed to promote equal opportunity for a group of people who are disadvantaged or have a special need because of a prescribed attribute.”

Lau then argued that section of the law was intended to allow for “positive discrimination” and not “negative discrimination.” He is fighting to either have the lounge closed or start admitting men. Additionally, he has said that men should have to pay less for a ticket than women.

Tribunal deputy president Richard Grueber is reserving his decision for a later date that has yet to be decided.

Though Kaechele has indicated that she would take the case to the supreme court if necessary, she pointed out that shutting down the work would only further the point of the work itself, telling the BBC, “If you were just looking at it from an aesthetic standpoint, being forced to close would be pretty powerful.”