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David Walsh, millionaire founder of Tasmania's acclaimed Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), has apologised for comments made about visitors to the Auschwitz concentration camp, in a blog post about a controversial performance planned for the Dark Mofo festival.
Warning: this story contains graphic content
The upcoming "installation" featuring a freshly slaughtered bull, directed by Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch, has sparked a huge online backlash, with more than 10,000 people signing a petition to have the event cancelled.
In the blog post about the three-hour performance published on Wednesday, Walsh said: "I didn't build Mona to serve the sort of creepy f***s that go to Auschwitz (over a million of them a year), but given Mona's much-vaunted sex and death theme (I wish I'd never said that) the level of morbid interest would be vast. I might well end up in the cell next to [Port Arthur shooter] Martin Bryant."
Jonathan Rabinovitz replied:
"I wonder if some of the 'creepy f***s' who visit Auschwitz, do so in attempt to process the trauma of losing family members (even ones they may never have met) and connect with their family history in so doing.
"I don't know of anyone who made the visit in order to garner any of the cheap or macarbe (sic) thrills that I suspect some of the creepy f***s who visit Mona, may do.
"Your highly inappropriate and insensitive comment Mr Walsh detracted somewhat from your article. Shame on you."
Walsh responded that his intent was irony and was unfortunate.
"Not only was it offensive, for which I apologise, but it was sloppy, since it was bore no relation to the subject that I was attempting to comment on.
"Initially the text read "it'd be like a cross between Madame Tussaud's and a Jack The Ripper tour, but with more pathos and a good bar".
"In attempting the same ironic outcome I changed my text to a reference to Auschwitz, without contemplating the more immediate ramifications of the very many with a potent connection to that tragic place."
Walsh responded to the controversy surrounding the performance, titled 150 Action, by saying outrage was "good for business" and the public's morbid fascination with "disaster tourism" is a benefit to the economy.
Walsh suggested the backlash had served his purposes and "spiked a conversation" about meat.
Nitsch, whom Walsh described as a "fat, demented sloth, a good bloke, and in my opinion, a great social artist", has used blood and animal entrails to explore the themes of ritual and sacrifice in his performance works for decades.
The Dark Mofo show will be Nitsch's first performance in Australia.
Topics: contemporary-art, visual-art, berriedale-7011