Shock-seekers snap up new Aussie art

But the most talked-about piece is the Cloaca Professional,labelled the poo-machine. It was built by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye to mimic the actions of the human digestive system.

A series of glass receptacles hang in a row with the machine being fed twice a day on one end. The food is ground up naturally,the way it is in the human body,and the device produces faeces on the clock at 2 pm at the other end.

The smell is so powerful that not many visitors can take it.

It put me off because of the overwhelming assault on the senses,said Diane Malnic,a Sydney-based accountant.

Yet this was her second visit in five months,following a family holiday in Tasmania earlier in the year. This time,she flew without her husband and children just to have another look at the collection,interested in Delvoye8217;s other pieces.

She took great care to avoid the smelly parts and still talked vividly about the vomit room which was part of an earlier exhibit no longer on display.

I wouldn8217;t go back to see them,she said,laughing.

The Cloaca is part of a series of at least five similar machines built by the artist and is the most hated piece in the museum but also the most visited.

The museum,which opened in January 2011,is owned by eccentric and philanthropist David Walsh,who made his fortune as a professional gambler,and features one of the largest private art collections in the world with an estimated value of around A100 million.

Its motto is to shock,offend,inform and entertain.

It definitely challenges your interpretation of what art is,said Malnic.

Pieces include Chris Ofili8217;s Holy Virgin Mary,which features elephant dung and porn-magazine cutouts of genitals. It caused controversy in 1999,with then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani reportedly describing Ofili8217;s work as sick.

Another much-talked-about piece is the Matrix by Jenny Saville,a full-frontal large painting of a naked transgender woman with his modified genitals exposed.

It8217;s confronting,said Margarita Silva,a Melbourne-based dentist making during her third trip to the MONA.

Detractors argue that some of the pieces don8217;t belong to a museum,which is also what Malnic initially thought. But upon reflection,she said the Cloaca machine opened her mind and argued that perhaps it was the future of art.

For Silva,her favourites were a soundproof room of 30 Madonna fans who were individually filmed singing a capella the artist8217;s Immaculate Collection album. The other was a waterfall with droplets spelling out a series of words.

Keeping with the MONA8217;s sensibility,none of its art work is grouped or chronological,leaving viewers to walk at random.

Overall,it8217;s a fantastic experience,said Silva.