Hobart, Australia

MONA — Museum of Old and New Art

MONA opened in 2011 on the Berriedale peninsula outside Hobart, founded and funded by David Walsh, a professional gambler turned collector. Much of the museum is built underground, carved into sandstone cliffs above the Derwent River. MONA takes a deliberately provocative, anti-establishment approach. It juxtaposes ancient antiquities with confronting contemporary art across dark, labyrinthine galleries, dispenses with conventional wall labels in favor of a handheld digital guide, and stages the boundary-pushing festivals Dark Mofo and Mona Foma. MONA's relevance lies in how completely it rewrote the rules: it transformed Tasmania into an international cultural destination and became the defining case study in idiosyncratic, personality-driven museum-making.