Jeffrey Gibson’s joyous, imaginative designs for the US pavilion at last year’s Venice Biennale demonstrated his knack for enlivening neoclassical exteriors – which makes him an apt pick for the Met’s latest Facade Commission (12 September–9 June 2026). In the four large niches of the Met’s Fifth Avenue building Gibson is installing figurative sculptures that incorporate text, patterning and unconventional materials to explore the relationship between living beings and the environment, a theme that has never been more urgent. Gibson has tackled major themes in a timely manner before: for the installation at the Biennale he bedecked the pavilion in blazing colours and snaked the beginning of the Declaration of Independence (‘We hold these truths to be self-evident’) around it in a typeface he designed himself. At a time when US museums are facing sharp political headwinds, Gibson remains undaunted.
Find out more from the Met’s website.
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