Metropolitan Museum of Art Invites Artists to Make New Art for Fifth Avenue

THE ART NEWSPAPER
BY Victoria Stapley-Brown

Kent Monkman has been selected to create two monumental paintings for The Met's Great Hall. Monkman, born in Canada in 1965, is a Cree artist widely known for his provocative interventions into Western European and American art history.

Nine months since he took over as director, Max Hollein is indeed making his mark at the New York institution. Hollein’s commitment to integrating Modern and contemporary art at the Met’s Fifth Avenue building is evident in the upcoming exhibition program, most notably, the fulfillment of his promise of new annual commissions for two public spaces. The Cree Canadian artist Kent Monkman, whose practice is “a new idea of modern history painting”, Hollein said, will make monumental paintings for the Great Hall (19 December-12 February 2020). And the Kenya-born artist Wangechi Mutu, who makes pieces with “fantastic otherworldly narratives”, Hollein said, has been chosen for the first-ever project for the empty sculptural niches on the Fifth Avenue façade. [More]

The NewOnes, will free Us, by Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu, inaugurates an annual commission to animate The Met's historic facade.