A Tasmanian court has widened Australia’s gender divide

It’s hard to make head or tail of where Australia stands on the gender debate that has divided the West. The issue boils down to a simple question: should men be allowed in women’s spaces? But the answer is far from simple. And a court ruling by a Tasmanian court ruling may have just added to the confusion.

Tasmania’s avant garde Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is not everyone’s cup of artistic tea. Its curator, American-born artist and wife of Mona’s very wealthy founder, David Walsh, Kirsha Kaechele, is certainly no stranger to controversy.

In July, the museum was exposed as exhibiting artworks attributed to Picasso, that were actually sophisticated fakes, painted by Kaechele herself. Having  been rumbled, Kaechele issued an apology to the Picasso estate, but she and Mona clearly enjoyed the publicity. It was where those fakes were located, however, that has made international headlines, and become a cause célèbre embraced by Australia’s feminist sisterhood.