Hobart’s popular Museum of Old and New Art could be forced to shut down a women’s-only Ladies Lounge created by Kirsha Kaechele, the wife of the museum founder David Walsh, if an anti-discrimination case launched by a male lawyer is successful.
“I visited Mona, paid $35, on the expectation that I would have access to the museum, and I was quite surprised when I was told that I would not be able to see one exhibition, the Ladies Lounge,” Mr Lau told the hearing. “Anyone who buys a ticket would expect a fair provision of goods and services.” A courtroom sketch of David Lau v Kirsha Kaechele of Museum of Old and New Art . Credit: Arjan KokScott argued that by being denied access to the Ladies Lounge, men were indeed experiencing the work and its intent – they were not missing out.
When deputy president Grueber acknowledged that he was struggling to understand the “opportunity” being presented by the Ladies Lounge, Kaechele replied: “The opportunity to gather in peace as women without men, the opportunity to relish the exclusion of men, it’s only because we don’t hold power that we can do this … which gives the work its humour, if not it would be cruel.”