A multi-millionaire on a mission: David Walsh expands his Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania

Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania is opening a major new wing, Phrontisterion, described as the largest construction project in the museum’s 15-year history and backed by founder David Walsh, a multi-millionaire professional gambler. The extension is estimated to have cost A$100m (US$70m), exceeding the A$75m Walsh spent on the original largely underground museum, and it expands display space from 8,440 sq. m to roughly 12,640 sq. m. The new areas include a redeveloped library space and works by artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Julian Charrière, Matthew Barney, Joshua Yeldham, Lucas Grogan, Rachel Marks, and Ben Jakober, alongside references to figures like 17th-century cartographer Willem Blaeu. New permanent installations include Charrière’s Breathe, which involves oxygen molecules trapped in iron ore formed 2.4 billion years ago during the Great Oxidation Event, and Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office’s In Absence (2019), a 9 m-high timber pavilion adorned with more than 1,400 hand-blown glass daisy yams.

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