liu wei to transform the MET's facade with site-specific sculpture

liu wei’s sculptures to take over the met facade in 2026

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announces that Beijing-based artist Liu Wei will create a new suite of four large-scale sculptures for its Fifth Avenue facade in New York, to be unveiled in fall 2026. The Genesis Facade Commission: Liu Wei marks the artist’s first major presentation in the United States and the seventh iteration of The Met’s annual facade commission, an initiative that brings contemporary art directly into the public sphere.

designboom attended The Met’s press conference in Paris, where the artist was announced as the next participant in The Genesis Facade Commission. The event also featured architect Frida Escobedo, who presented the museum’s forthcoming Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, her major expansion for The Met’s modern and contemporary art collection, set to open in 2030 (find designboom’s previous coverage here).

Dimension (2021), installation view Art Basel 2022 Unlimited exhibition, image courtesy of Art Basel

reconfiguring urban fragments into monumental reflections

Liu Wei, known for his monumental sculptural installations that repurpose fragments from urban and historical environments, will engage the niches of the Met facade with works exploring cycles of rupture, resistance, mending, and creation. Using his distinctive language of reconfiguration and assemblage, the Beijing-based artist is expected to combine the raw and the refined, inviting viewers to reconsider the contradictions of contemporary life. ‘Liu Wei’s sculptures for The Genesis Facade Commission are sure to reflect the curiosity, innovation—and even humor—he is known for,’ shares Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French director and CEO. ‘This commission also reflects the spirit of The Met’s Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art, opening in 2030, where global perspectives and boundary-pushing artistic practices like Liu Wei’s will be at the heart of how we present art of our time.’

Curated by Lesley Ma, Ming Chu Hsu and Daniel Xu curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, the commission, on view from September 17th, 2026, through June 8th, 2027, situates Liu’s practice within the broader effort of the institution to expand its contemporary program. ‘To dialogue with the tremendous legacy of human civilization through The Met’s Genesis Facade Commission makes me so excited and anxious,’ notes Liu Wei. ‘What a challenge and a blessing.’

Liu Wei, Microworld (2018) | Installation view, Venice Biennale, Arsenale, 2019 | image by Roberto Marossi

a stage for free and public art

Since its inception in 2019, the facade commission has redefined how The Met introduces itself to the world using its monumental exterior as a site for free and public art. Previous installations have included Wangechi Mutu’s mythic bronze figures The NewOnes, will free Us (2019); Carol Bove’s metallic distortions The séances aren’t helping (2021); Hew Locke’s gilded reimaginings of power, Gilt (2022); Nairy Baghramian’s Scratching the Back (2023); and most recently, Lee Bul’s Long Tail Halo (2024) and Jeffrey Gibson’s The Animal That Therefore I Am (2025). Each commission invites artists to engage with The Met’s architectural and symbolic presence, forging links between history, material, and identity.

For Liu Wei, this commission extends his long-standing engagement with urban transformation and the fragmentation of the modern condition. A leading figure among Chinese conceptual artists of the late 1990s, Liu’s work, spanning sculpture, painting, video, and installation, uses everyday materials to expose the tensions of contemporary life. His practice, defined by assemblage and reconfiguration, transforms industrial and found elements into complex spatial systems that oscillate between chaos and control.

Nudità exhibition, installation view © Liu Wei | image © White Cube (Ollie Hammick)

the museum’s transformation toward 2030

The commission arrives as The Met prepares for a major architectural transformation with the construction of the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, designed by Frida Escobedo. Set to open in 2030, the 11,706-square-meter addition will house the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary art from 1890 to today. During the announcement in Paris, Escobedo reflects on the challenge of designing within the existing footprint of the historic institution. ‘The Met is composed of 21 individual buildings, constructed over 100 years. It’s very much like a medieval town, a collection of narrow streets and open plazas,’ she comments.

Her design draws from the logic of weaving, employing modular grids and screens. The Tang Wing will open new visual connections to Central Park through layered galleries, blending daylight, texture, and rhythm into the museum’s evolving architectural language. ‘We aim to create moments of surprise and contemplation, of encounter and reflection,’ Escobedo says, noting that the new spaces will bring the park’s landscape into dialogue with the city skyline and the museum’s interior.

installation view of Big Dog at Qatar Museums Gallery Al Riwaq, 2016 | image by Wen-You Cai, courtesy Cai studio

Jeffrey Gibson, installation view of they carry messages between light and dark spaces bia̱kak / dawodv / hawk for The Genesis Facade Commission: Jeffrey Gibson, The Animal Therefore I Am, 2025 Courtesy the artist Silicon bronze with patina finish | image by Eugenia Burnett Tinsley | courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Installation view Lee Bul, Long Tail Halo: The Secret Sharer II, 2024. courtesy the artist | image by Eugenia Burnett Tinsley courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art