Liu Wei debuts ‘Speculation’ installation at The Met

Beijing-based contemporary artist Liu Wei has debuted his new installation, ‘Speculation’, as part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Genesis Facade Commission. The exhibition, which marks Liu’s first solo show in New York in a decade, is scheduled to run through June 7, 2027.

The installation features large-scale sculptures positioned on both sides of the museum's main entrance. Utilizing materials such as fiberglass composite, metal, aluminum alloy, and bovine rawhide, the works blend architectural fragments with biomorphic forms. A recurring motif in the pieces is the ‘human hand’, used to connect recognizable objects with fantastical elements to explore themes of transformation, fragmentation, and reconstruction.

The commission is part of a series initiated by the museum in 2024 to showcase large-scale contemporary works on its iconic Fifth Avenue facade. Liu’s work reflects on the tensions of rapid societal change and the processes of making and becoming, drawing from his observations of China’s urbanization and globalization.