Many of Pablo Picasso’s works are now featured on the walls of the women’s bathroom store at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, Australia. ABC News reported on Monday.
The Picasso paintings were first featured in American artist Kirsha Cashel’s „Ladies’ Lounge” installation, which offered an opulent retreat for female guests only, with champagne served by male butlers, and featured some of the museum’s most notable works by artists such as Picasso. and Sidney Nolan. The installation opened in 2020.
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In April 2023, Jason Lau from New South Wales was denied entry to the restroom. Complained With Tasmania’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the museum breached Tasmania’s anti-discrimination law by failing to provide „reasonable goods and services within the meaning of the law” to those who paid for museum tickets but did not identify as women. Installation Closed shortly In April, a judge ruled that the installation was discriminatory.
The museum was given 28 days to stop refusing entry, but instead found a hole in the walls of a women-only bathroom stall with Picasso artwork. Before, according to the artist, whose husband David Walsh owned the Mona, the museum had only unisex bathrooms.
„Before we didn’t have women’s restrooms at Mona, they were all unisex,” Cassell wrote on Instagram. „But the ladies’ lounge had to close because of a lawsuit by a man, and I didn’t know what to do with those Picassos.”
„Ladies’ Lounge” refers to a moment in Australian history before the country’s pubs got the right to serve alcohol in 1965. Until then, women were relegated to adjoining rooms where they were overcharged or barred from these types of establishments altogether.
Picasso was one of the most influential Spanish painters of the 20th century and a co-founder of the Cubist movement.
Kaechele is currently trying to reopen „women’s restrooms” through Section 26 of the state’s anti-discrimination law, which defines the circumstances under which someone can discriminate.