Danh Vo and Sandra Mujinga Land Met Museum's 2027 Facade and Great Hall Commissions

By Tom Whitfield

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has named Danh Vo as its 2027 Genesis Facade commission artist and Sandra Mujinga for the Great Hall commission. Vo's new works go on view starting in September; Mujinga's site-specific installation follows next November.

The pairing is the Met's latest move in a commissioning program that hands its most visible architecture to living artists. What does this change for museumgoers? Two of the institution's signature spaces — its Beaux-Arts exterior and its entrance hall — will carry contemporary work through 2027.

Who are the commissioned artists?

Vo, who often entwines his experience as a Vietnamese boat refugee with questionings of modern history, will create new works for the four niches of the museum's exterior. The placement is unusually exposed: facade commissions sit outside the ticket line, in public view.

Mujinga's practice draws from the legacy of Afrofuturism, science fiction, and postcolonialism. Her Great Hall installation will occupy the institution's interior — the room every visitor passes through.

Met Director and CEO Max Hollein framed the choices in a statement: "Danh Vo and Sandra Mujinga both treat history as something alive and unsettled and are deeply attuned to the ways objects and bodies carry meaning across time."

Sarah Hayes named deputy director of Armenian Museum of America

Sarah Hayes is now deputy director of the Armenian Museum of America (AMoA) in Massachusetts. She had led the institution's Development department since 2023.

Her ties to Armenian culture run long. Hayes served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the nation from 2005 to 2007, then worked as West Coast operations manager for the Armenia Tree Project in Los Angeles before joining AMoA.

At the museum, she helped secure key works for a landmark Arshile Gorky exhibition. The institution credits her with strengthening its financial sustainability — a claim worth watching, as sustainability is easier asserted than audited.

What comes next

Vo's facade works arrive in September; Mujinga's Great Hall installation opens next November. Hayes, for her part, takes on a deputy directorship at a museum betting that its Gorky-era momentum can carry a broader mission.