Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The Lone and level sands stretch far away.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Ozymandias’ (1818)

David and Kirsha first visited Kiefer’s La Ribaute studio-estate near Barjac in the south of France before Mona opened. David kept thinking about La Ribaute, so he contacted Olivier, curator at large, and told him to ask Kiefer if Mona could build something like the vast concrete amphitheatre there …

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Header image: Elektra (detail), 2025, Anselm Kiefer