Mona founder David Walsh (right) has just come up with something. It only took him 10 years to get it done.
After four years of construction and 10 years of headaches, Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is set to open its new wing in June, Walsh reveals.
It will feature a vast library to house his collection of rare books, maps and more, along with artworks by Anselm Kiefer, Julian Charrière and others.
"I was always all-in on books and libraries," Walsh says. "My first library card was the great leveller, the thing that gave impoverished child-me a chance to seek.’
The Phrontisterion, coined by Aristophanes in his work Clouds, for ‘a thinkery’, in which he ridicules the self-certainty of the educated, will draw from Walsh’s collection of "a big bunch of books".
Mona’s librarian Mary Lijnzaad said: "If you want to know what David is really like, browse his bookshelves."
Phrontisterion is connected to Mona’s existing buildings via tunnels in the sandstone and located in the space beneath the inverted-ziggurat levels of Elektra (above), an Anselm Kiefer amphitheatre, first built at Kiefer’s studio at La Ribaute in Barjac, southern France, with sculptures and paintings by the artist installed throughout.
The new wing will accommodate Breathe, a permanent installation by Julian Charrière, whose solo exhibition Hard Core will reside at Mona from June 6, 2026 to April 5, 2027. The installation invites visitors to breathe air that has never been breathed before.
The opening of the new wing also coincides with the return of Ryoji Ikeda’s light tower, spectra, and the Mona debut of In Absence, an architectural installation created by Kokatha/nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce and Melbourne architects Aaron Roberts and Kim Bridgland for the 2019 NGV Architecture Commission.
The 9-metre-high timber tower takes inspiration from traditional eel traps and is adorned with 1,400 hand-blown, black glass murnong, or daisy yams.
See mona.net.au
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