Monuments of the Moment

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art announces the artists for its 2025 commission series, an annual project that invites artists to create works that engage in a dialogue with its permanent collection. Slated to open next year, renowned artists Jennie C. Jones and Jeffrey Gibson will each display new sculptures that underscore the symbolic power of the medium. Considering America’s tradition of sculpture has been largely dominated by a white, male narrative, the museum’s upcoming programming challenges this power structure by highlighting artists who expand upon the art-historical narrative with visual iconographies that express underrepresented perspectives. 

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A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Gibson confronts the historical reduction and flattening of Indigenous culture through a breadth of sources, materials, and imagery. The interdisciplinary artist’s four sculptures depicting ancestral spirits will be displayed in front of the Met Fifth Avenue’s facade, on view from September 2025 through May 2026. He has also been selected as the first indigenous artist to represent the U.S. in this year’s Venice Biennale.

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The Colorado-born artist’s most recent exhibition, “Ancestral Superbloom” at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in 2023, featured his visual vocabulary of astonishingly vibrant patterns, a full spectrum of colors, and the artist's own writing expressed across acrylic paintings and sculptures, such as In DON'T GIVE UP, 2023, a punching bag reimagined in colorful steel, fringes, glass beads, and artificial sinew. 

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Jones—who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and is currently based in Hudson, New York—blends subtle yet evocative soundscapes into her multidisciplinary art practice that defies any generalized or identity-based categorizations. Her commission is the final outdoor sculptural installation for the museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, before the roof closes to accommodate the construction of a five-story-high gallery expansion. Jones’ minimal paintings, sculptures, installations, and audio compositions are experimental and immersive, with a nod to the improvisational jazz and Black avant-garde music of her formative years. “Constant Structure,” a series of minimal red and white acoustic panels, displayed at her 2020 exhibition at Arts Club of Chicago, reached critical acclaim for its use of a consecutive chord progression commonly played in jazz music that cohesively blends disparate notes.

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Jones’ new work, which incorporates stringed instruments, will be on view from April 15 to October 19, 2025. The installation continues her exploration of minimalism and music as vessels for expanding and deepening cultural narratives.  "Though stylistically different, both Jones and Gibson see the potential for beauty and form to carry the potency of individual and cultural histories,” said Max Hollein, the Met’s director and chief executive.

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“The Roof Garden Commission: Jennie C. Jones” will be on view from April 15 through October 19, 2025 and “The Facade Commission: Jeffrey Gibson” will be on view from September 2025 through May 2026 at the Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028.

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