The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork has introduced that Chinese language artist Liu Wei will create 4 large-scale sculptures for its Fifth Avenue facade, debuting in fall 2026 by June of the next 12 months.
The fee is a part of the New York museum’s annual custom, which invitations modern artists to interact with the structure of its historic constructing and collections that in some circumstances date again 1000’s of years. Wei’s mission would be the seventh within the ongoing Facade Fee collection, launched in 2019 and meant as a dialogue between the previous and current.
Identified for his evocative and unconventional installations exploring themes of urbanization and modernity — like a collection of architectural landmarks made out of canine chews — Wei will create a number of composite sculptures from a spread of supplies for The Met. The mission marks the Beijing-based artist’s first main institutional exhibition in america.
In a press release, Wei described the fee as “a challenge and a blessing.”
“To dialogue with the tremendous legacy of human civilization through The Met’s Genesis Facade Commission makes me so excited and anxious,” Wei mentioned.
The Met’s facade has beforehand featured artworks by Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu, Iranian-German sculptor Nairy Baghramian, and Lee Bul of South Korea, every of whom reimagined the museum’s classical structure by a up to date lens. The latest fee, by Jeffrey Gibson, showcases 10-foot bronze sculptures of various animals that carry symbolic significance in sure Indigenous cultures. Gibson’s items, unveiled in September 2025, might be on view by June 2026.
“Love it! Bite it!” (2005–2007), Liu Wei’s sculpture of world-famous buildings constructed from edible canine chews (photograph by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Pictures)
Born in 1972 in the course of the Cultural Revolution, Wei rose to prominence in China’s modern artwork scene in the course of the early Nineteen Nineties as a part of a motion often known as Cynical Realism, whose practitioners created satirical and sometimes humorous work reflecting the socio-political local weather of the time.
“For me, his work always compellingly pierces through perceptions of reality with a blend of rawness and refinement,” mentioned Lesley Ma, affiliate curator of Asian Artwork at The Met, within the museum’s assertion. “I look forward to seeing how he challenges our expectations for the classical niches and for public sculptures.”
