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Liu Wei

LIU WEI

The Genesis Facade Commission: Liu Wei, Speculation Metropolitan Museum of Art 17 September 2026–8 June 2027 New York
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Press Release

Beijing-based artist Liu Wei (born 1972) inspires visitors to ponder cycles of rupture and mending for The Genesis Facade Commission in 2026. Known for monumental sculptural installations that evoke awe and a sense of urgency, Liu presents four large-scale sculptures for The Met’s Fifth Avenue exterior. Using a variety of materials and remixing familiar motifs—fragments from the urban environment, historical sources, and bodily forms—Liu Wei invites contemplation, surprise, and revelation to pierce through our perceptions of reality with a blend of rawness and refinement. In The Met’s four sculptures, the recurring motif of the human hand—so rich in art historical and cultural associations—emerges as a point of connection between the recognizable and the fantastical.

A key figure among a generation of artists from China who sought to define “conceptual art” on their own terms, Liu Wei has addressed realities of our time through a wide range of media, from photography and painting to video, sculpture, and installation, since the late 1990s. He has developed a body of work that challenges art historical cliches across forms and styles and is known for his impressive command of sites and scale. Speculation is shaped by the artist’s experience living in the age of globalization, especially in a rapidly modernizing China during a period of dramatic economic, political, and social transformation.

Liu’s project for The Genesis Facade Commission is his first major presentation in the United States and the seventh in The Met’s annual commission series.

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Installation Views

Exhibition view: Liu Wei, The Genesis Facade Commission: Liu Wei, Speculation, Metropolitan Museum of Art (6/8/2027–8 June 2027). Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About the Artist

Liu Wei is a leading Chinese contemporary artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and video. Internationally recognised for his conceptual approach and inventive use of urban and everyday materials, Liu Wei explores themes of urbanisation, power, and the contradictions of contemporary life, positioning him at the forefront of post-1989 Chinese art.

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Also Exhibiting at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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SI LEWEN There Are No Words: Si Lewen's Parade Metropolitan Museum of Art 1 October 2026–5 January 2027 New York
David Hartt
DAVID HARTT Peripheries Metropolitan Museum of Art 25 September 2026–7 February 2027 New York
About the Gallery

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) is one of the world’s most well-loved landmark museums located on Fifth Avenue along Central Park’s Museum Mile in Manhattan, New York. Renowned for its monumental Beaux-Arts architecture and encyclopedic collection, it also presents an exceptional showing of contemporary art.

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1000 Fifth Avenue
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New York
United States
Opening Hours
Daily, 10am – 5pm
Friday – Saturday, 10am – 9pm
Closed Wednesday
(1)
New York 1000 Fifth Avenue, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art contemporary art institution in New York United States
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, NY, New York, United States
+1 212 535 7710
http://www.metmuseum.org

Opening hours
Daily, 10am – 5pm
Friday – Saturday, 10am – 9pm
Closed Wednesday
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