Liu Wei Puts Four Hybrid Sculptures on the Met's Fifth Avenue Facade
Four hybrid figures now look out from the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
They are by Liu Wei, a Beijing-based artist born in 1972. The work sits on the museum's Fifth Avenue facade, so it meets people on the street before they ever enter the building.
The installation is titled The Genesis Facade Commission: Liu Wei, Speculation. It opened on September 17, 2026, and remains on view through June 8, 2027, the Met Museum said. It is presented by Genesis, whose name sits in the title of the series.
The show features four large-scale sculptures. Large-scale here means works built to hold their own against a grand museum front. Site-specific is the term museums use for art designed for one exact spot and no other. Hybrid simply means a mix, part one thing and part another, and Liu Wei's new figures have been described as hybrid sculptures, ARTnews reported.
The museum selected Liu Wei to create the sculptures. The choice was first reported in October 2025. It continues the Facade Commission, a rolling series that began in 2019 and hands the front of the building to a contemporary artist, The New York Times reported.
That history helps explain the format. Each artist must think like an architect as well as a sculptor. The work has to live outdoors, at height, across seasons. This edition will span autumn, winter and spring, almost nine months in all.
What matters here are the firsts. The museum says these site-specific sculptures are Liu Wei's first major project in the United States. For many American visitors, in other words, this will be the first chance to meet his work at full scale and in person.
It is also the museum's first commissioned work by an artist from China since 2006. A commission, in museum language, means the museum asked for new work to be made, rather than borrowing or buying something already finished.
The project was organised with Lesley Ma, the Met curator associated with the commission. A curator researches the artist and helps decide how the work sits in the space and how it is explained to the public.
The museum describes the sculptures as inviting visitors to ponder cycles of rupture and resistance. Rupture means a break or tear. Resistance means a push back. The description points visitors toward ideas of breaking apart and holding firm, without telling them what to see.
What makes this stand out is how open the encounter is. For visitors, this means there is no ticket barrier and no quiet gallery. Look up from the pavement. The front of the museum is the gallery wall.
