The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced that the artist Alex Da Corte will design its roof garden commission this year, exploring the possibility of innocence and hope amid the global uncertainty and sadness wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
The 40-year-old artist, who lives and works in Philadelphia, is known for immersive installations and for ranging across a variety of mediums, including film, performance, painting, installation and sculpture. The Met says his rooftop sculpture, titled As Long as the Sun Lasts, will be fashioned from stainless steel and fiberglass and will be on view from 16 April through 31 October.
“The installation, which the artist initiated as the pandemic first took hold of the world, evokes notions of uncertainty, nostalgia, sadness and hope so inherent in our turbulent times,” says Max Hollein, the Met’s director, in a statement. “With this commission, Da Corte has created a work of art that meets the present moment and its challenges with the promise of optimism.”
The ninth in a series of site-specific commissions for the museum’s rooftop space, the installation was conceived by the artist in consultation with Sheena Wagstaff, the Met’s chairman of Modern and contemporary art, and Shanay Jhaveri, assistant curator of international Modern and contemporary art, the Met says.
“By tapping icons of art and popular culture from our collective consciousness, Alex Da Corte has created a new type of monument in this commission,” Wagstaff says. “In a play of opposites that is spirited, absurd and deadly serious, modern culture is reconfigured into unexpected orbit, evoking a utopian possibility of innocence and play in the face of these times of melancholic collapse.”
The installation will be accompanied by a publication with images tracking Da Corte’s artistic process as well as essays and an interview with the artist.
Previous Met roof commissions have included installations by the artists Imran Qureshi, Dan Graham, Pierre Huyghe, Cornelia Parker, Adrián Villar Rojas, Huma Bhabha, Alicja Kwade and Héctor Zamora.
