The Metropolitan Museum of Art has selected Danh Vo for its 2027 Genesis Facade commission and Sandra Mujinga for a Great Hall installation. Vo’s new work will occupy four niches on the museum’s Beaux-Arts exterior, while Mujinga’s site-specific project is scheduled to open inside the museum next November. The commissions are announced alongside a major Rembrandt exhibition planned for the Met in November 2027.
Two commissions, two museum settings
Vo will make new works for the four niches of the Met’s facade, with the installation due to go on view in September. The commission places contemporary art on the museum’s exterior, where it will meet visitors before they enter the galleries.
Mujinga’s commission is for the Great Hall, the Met’s interior entrance space, and is described as a site-specific installation. It is set to open next November, giving the project a different setting and timetable from Vo’s facade work.
Artists working with history
Vo’s practice often brings his experience as a Vietnamese boat refugee into conversation with questions of modern history. The commission’s placement across four architectural niches gives him a prominent public-facing setting for new work, though details of its form have not been announced.
Mujinga’s work draws on Afrofuturism, science fiction and post-colonialism. For the Great Hall, the site-specific format makes the museum’s central interior part of the work’s context; the project’s materials and visual structure have not been detailed.
The Met’s framing of the choices
Met Director and CEO Max Hollein described both artists as treating history as “alive and unsettled” and as attentive to the meaning objects and bodies carry across time. His statement connects the two commissions through a shared interest in how history is experienced and represented.
The artists bring distinct reference points to that theme: Vo’s engagement with modern history and Mujinga’s focus on Afrofuturist and post-colonial ideas. Their separate locations—the four exterior niches and the Great Hall—will make those approaches visible in different parts of the same institution.
Rembrandt exhibition provides a wider context
The commissions accompany an exhibition of new works by Rembrandt that will open at the Met in November 2027. At least three paintings in the exhibition have never been shown in the United States: Bathsheba Holding King David’s Letter, Oath of the Batavians and Woman Bathing in a Stream.
The exhibition is planned to bring together more than 120 paintings, prints and drawings from over 40 lenders. After its Met presentation, it is scheduled to move to the Louvre in March 2028, extending the project beyond New York.
Dates to watch
Vo’s facade commission is expected to go on view in September, while Mujinga’s Great Hall installation is planned for next November. The Rembrandt exhibition is scheduled to open at the Met in November 2027, with its Paris presentation at the Louvre set for March 2028.
Together, the announcement links two contemporary commissions with a major historical exhibition, spanning the Met’s exterior and interior as well as a later presentation in Paris. The Met has not disclosed further details of the commissioned works.
Takeaway: The Met’s announcement pairs Vo’s four-niche facade project with Mujinga’s Great Hall installation as the museum prepares its 2027 Rembrandt exhibition.
What this piece draws on
- The New York Times — “A Fresh Take on Rembrandt Is Coming to the Met, Then Heading to the Louvre – The New York Times”
- stedelijk.nl — “Annual Program 2025-2026”
- Residency — “OFFSCREEN Paris”
Topic guide: Artists: The Complete Guide