Creative exchanges between public and private: the case of MONA (The Museum of Old and New Art) and the city of Hobart

The mythic narrative of the Bilbao Effect suggests not merely the potential of new contemporary art museums but also new working arrangements between public and private institutions of the city. This paper reports on a major Australian Research Council funded project that investigated the dramatic impact that MONA has had on the city of Hobart, Tasmania. Beginning as a largely private initiative MONA is provides an excellent example of the new exhibitionary complex in which public and private no longer vie for cultural authority but are necessarily reconfigured into new forms of exchange and collaboration. This paper shows not only how the fortunes of cities are increasingly dependent on this, but also highly structured by a new political economy of contemporary art worlds and their places.