Artist refuses to bow to demands from men to be let into her exhibition

@Tessisme- the identify with part disappointed me to. It doesn't exclude men with the women feelz, so doesn't exclude men at all.

update here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1wpegrnrxo

They are now planning to turn it into a women's toilet to allow them to block men, and a church:

Ms Kaechele's plans involve transforming the velvet-clad lounge into a women's toilet and a church - which she claims will allow it to continue operating as a women-only space under legal exemptions.
“There is a fabulous toilet coming to the Ladies Lounge, and so in that sense the Ladies Lounge will operate as a ladies’ room.
"It’s a toilet that is celebrated the world round. It is the greatest toilet, and men won’t be allowed to see it," Ms Kaechele said in Australian media reports.
Some of the key artworks, like the ones by Picasso, will be moved into the toilet to ensure "uninterrupted viewing" while she applies for other exemptions.
And only on Sundays, men would be allowed into the space - to learn ironing and laundry folding.
"Women can bring in all their clean laundry and the men can go through a series of graceful movements (designed by a Rinpoche and refined by tai chi masters) to fold them," she said, in an interview published by the museum, external on Tuesday.

Admire the spirit! 😁

• Feminism isn’t about revenge against men
• No, men can't enter the (insanely overpriced) exhibition, they must suffer as women suffered in the past

I think this is a case of "Everyone Is The Asshole Here". I think it's fatuous pseudo-feminism but within the context of art the museum should be allowed exclude men, so long as this is made clear to anyone paying for entrance. I still don't understand the entrance fee issue - some publications were saying there was an extra admission to that area.

The Ladies Lounge was created by Kirsha Kaechele, an artist and curator, who in a statement to the court described its central feature as a phallus-shaped velvet couch, or as she put it, “a tethered, rearing, restrained-by-golden-chains-and-then-ultimately-defeated phallus”.
It surprises me not one jot that the artist, in the end, centred a massive penis.

The 'artist' has lost so far, may appeal. Crap they pulled in the court pissed off the judge too

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/09/museum-old-new-art-women-only-ladies-lounge-hobart-tasmania/

https://archive.ph/Vfs8S what's that Skippy? This'll take you past the paywall?

"I'm not sorry, and you can't come in" 🤣🤣 Love it, and the wittiness of it too.

@SinnerBoy different thread, Victoria Culf is the artist who was banned from her own exhibition. This artist let's in any woman with deep enough pockets and any men who say they have lady feelz (and also enough cash).

But thank you for the archive link.

'Only people who identify as women are allowed in' is what the news presenter says in the video. So, potentially that's anyone at all. If Mr Lau had presented as a woman (ya know, dress, high heels, lipstick🙄), he could have sailed in no problem. I was buzzing when I read this article. Proper goosebumps. I loved the fact that men being denied access was an integral part of the exhibition. But ... they ARE allowed access.

Here's Victoria Culf's story, in her own words. It's an archived version from today's Mail:

https://archive.ph/n3JuL

Ah the old days of the bar (only had a male toilets in it) and the lounge (male and female toilets). Of course if you were a woman who wanted to play pool, darts or dominoes you needed to go in the bar and suffer the dirty looks and glares from the men for daring to enter the bar!

Haven't been to a pub for ages but I'm sure that still happens around here. Here being west Oxfordshire.

Yes Brefugee, I used to work in a pub in the eighties as a student. If a woman wanted beer or a man ordered it for her, we were to ask if she wanted it in a “lady’s glass” - a half pint ballon with a stem.

I used to go to a Working Men's Club with my grandad. He'd get me a half a shandy. And they always asked "is it for a lady" because they had these stemmed glasses (like a big bowled wine glass with a shorter, fatter stem) that took a half. For women.

In 2019 DH and I ordered the same bottled beer.
DHs came with a pint glass... mine with a half pint.

(

Some would also refuse to serve women pints.

aged 19 i started working in a pub in 1983. Very traditional in many ways. But on my first day a group of people came in and ordered 6 pints. Which i poured and cashed up. The landlord was really angry because 2 were women and "we don't serve pints to women" so when one of the women came up to get her round in, i gave her 4 pints and 4 halves. And again the landlord said i should have just given them a half. Until i pointed out the absurdity and downright unjustness of women buying 4 pints every time but only getting a half. That is not how rounds work (unless you specifically ask for a half)

As i sipped the pint the group bought me. And he agreed that it would now be allowed.

the patriarchy and discrimination against women has existed since time immemorial. Of course we should challenge it at all times.

And we can hold more than one thought in our dainty little heads at the same time. Today, for eg, i am thinking about the new cannabis laws in Germany; how to fix my printer; the awful situation in Gaza; what to ask DH to cook for dinner; what i am going to sew now my machine is repaired; and the new book i started last night.

In the late 70s I was sitting in a pub's snug with my boyfriend. There was a power cut so the place was only lit with candles, but when the power came back on and I was visible I was thrown out, for being female.

My early drinking days were in pubs that had a public bar (men) and a lounge bar for women and a few places that basically didn’t serve women at all. You’d go to the bar and never catch the barman’s eye but your boyfriend/male companion would.
It was a bad for all concerned as it reinforced the idea that men had to pay for women’s drinks. You would also never go into the pub to wait for your boyfriend as being alone in a pub meant you were seen as fair game . There were more and more places where this didn’t happen but it was v prevalent in local/trad pubs not so much in city centres. All this had largely gone in the mid 90s but I still have a couple of friends who are hesitant to wait in the pub if we are meeting up. I was amazed when living in Europe in early/mid 90s that you could sit as a single woman in a cafe bar with a beer and the paper.

I’m surprised if the article said that. Since the ladies lounge at Mona is named the ladies lounge for precisely that reason- it was the room in the pub that ladies could go to.
I do find it so strange to have this adamant stance against men, unless they happen to identify as women. Otherwise I quite love it. I think they should have proposed back an alternative two ticket scheme, where the men’s cost more 😁

@Flickersy - absolutely. We are only catering to rich people who identify as women. Everyone else is excluded.......including the vast majority of women.....

Exactly. Great way to flog 500 quid afternoon teas though! Make it a political statement.

If it's $500 for tea for two it's already excluding most women to be honest, nevermind the men.

Wait, so if it's an additional thing you have to pay more for, what's the basis of this case? Did he try to buy a ticket for the high tea experience but was refused?

For me, it doesn't really work as performance art.
Men refused access to the area aren't experiencing what women experienced at being excluded from spaces in the past. Women were excluded because they were seen as second class citizens, you can't really recreate that. Men are being excluded simply to make a point, it's artificial and doesn't have the same effect or meaning. Some men will be fine with it and perhaps clap themselves on the back for being feminist allies. Other men (like Lau) will resent it but, as the artist sees it, not on the same justified grounds that women resented their exclusion. So what point is really being made? If it's to mirror the injustice of single sex luxury spaces of the past, it doesn't do that, it's too tit-for-tat. If it's to make the point that women need our own spaces I don't think it does that either, because it's linking itself to practices the artist sees as unjust.

If you look at the website, its advertised as High Tea for two.

https://mona.net.au/stuff-to-do/experiences/ladies-lounge