ANSELM KIEFER X MONA
MONA unveiled a monumental new wing this summer, a vast subterranean build in the form of a brutalist concrete amphitheatre entitled Elektra, conceived by German Neo-Expressionist titan Anselm Kiefer (who was present at the unveiling), to accompany his monumental work Sternenfall / Shevirath ha Kelim (Falling Stars / The Breaking of the Vessels). Sparked by founder David Walsh’s ‘Damascene moment’ at Kiefer’s sprawling La Ribaute compound near Barjac, the project translates a similar sense of awe, with tunnels, chambers, concrete and myth, into the Hobart museum’s already charged landscape. Four years in the making and blowing past every budget marker, the new structure folds sculptural architecture, immersive installation and an expansive library into a single, cathedral-like gesture, deepening MONA’s ongoing experiment in art as environment rather than exhibition. Walsh describes the build as “obsession turned infrastructure”: a site where walls behave like artworks, ambition becomes compulsion, and visitors step into something alive, unsettling and uncontainable. The new wing at MONA is now open.
Image credit: ANSELM KIEFER, Elektra (detail), 2025. Photo: MONA/Jesse Hunniford. Courtesy of the artist and Museum of Old and New Art, Nipaluna/Hobart
