The Metropolitan Museum of Art has selected Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke to create new works for the Fifth Avenue facade niches, the third in a new series of site-specific commissions for the museum’s exterior.
The ‘Gilt’ project can be seen from September 16 of this year to May 22, 2023.
“Hew Locke uses a frenzied aesthetic of abundance and excess to portray themes of deep urgency in the past and present, including wealth, imperial power and prestige,” Sheena Wagstaff, the chair of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Met, said in a statement. a statement. “Locke’s work deftly interweaves the fine lines between theatricality, visual beauty and critical insight.”
The artist, whose main commission “The Procession” recently opened at Tate Britain, will create four sculptures for the Met, formed into whole and fragmented trophies that reference historic works in the museum’s collection.
Locke is known for collecting ready-made materials from a variety of places and time periods — such as coats of arms and warships — pertaining to things like power, migration, and conquest.
Born in Edinburgh in 1959 and raised in Guyana, Locke returned to the UK in 1980, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Falmouth University in 1988 and a master’s degree in sculpture from the Royal College of Art in 1994. London.
The Facade Commission started in 2019 with Wangechi Mutu’s “The NewOnes, will free Us”, followed in 2021 by Carol Bove’s “The séances are nothelp”.
The committee “will be informed by Locke’s in-depth knowledge of the Met collection and will refer to the institution both directly and indirectly,” said Max Hollein, the museum’s director, in a statement, “restoring and connecting histories across continents.” , oceans and epochs.”
