Artist Danh Vo (born 1975) has long explored how objects carry layered and unresolved histories. For The Genesis Facade Commission in 2027, Vo will create four new sculptures for The Met’s historic Fifth Avenue Beaux-Arts facade.
Born in Bà Rịa, Vietnam, Vo studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, and the Städelschule, Frankfurt, and lives and works in rural Germany as well as in Mexico City and Kyoto. Vo is drawn to objects that have gathered meaning over time, whether through their connection to a specific event or their long life as familiar symbols—from religious relics and photographs to scraps of leather and fragments of antiquity. The overall effect is of a sustained attention to human intimacy as it passes between artisans, viewers, objects, and time. At The Met, his work will bring the present into conversation with objects spanning thousands of years and the many people who made and cared for them.
Vo’s project for The Genesis Facade Commission is the eighth in the series of annual contemporary commissions for The Met’s facade. It is part of the latest in The Met's series of contemporary commissions, which invites artists to create new works of art in dialogue with The Met collection, its building, and its visitors. As The Met prepares to open the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art, in 2030, these commissions offer a highly visible platform for living artists and reflect the Museum’s commitment to art of our time
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