MET Roof Reopening
On a crisp morning atop the Metropolitan Museum of Art, artist Jennie C. Jones previewed Ensemble, her sculptural suite for the museum’s annual Roof Garden commission. The geometric sculptures—sleek, angular, and stretched with piano-string-like wires—appeared both visual and sonic in nature, quietly shimmering in the sunlight.
Each of the three main sculptures featured taut strings affixed with piano pegs. One was a trapezoid with a central groove; another, a towering angled form with a vertical cutout; and the third, two leaning panels forming a “V.” A fourth piece, a flat scarlet line, bordered the rooftop edge like a runner, hinting at a stage or performance space.
Materials like powder-coated aluminum and travertine concrete echoed the Met’s architecture. The restrained color palette—mainly deep wine red with bright red accents—heightened the visual drama. A breeze activated one sculpture’s strings, releasing a soft, resonant hum that delighted Jones. “She’s performing,” she said. “Right on cue.”
At 56, Jones has long incorporated sound into her work—sometimes literally, often conceptually. Her early use of CD cases and audio cables evolved into hybrid paintings and sculptures using acoustic panels, alluding to sonic textures and environments.
Her sound collages—often blending Black avant-garde or classical music—have filled spaces as varied as a Confederate memorial, Philip Johnson’s Glass House, and the Guggenheim. Now, she introduces sculptures that can behave like instruments, activated by the elements rather than touch.
These forms reference both Minimalist sculpture and Black vernacular traditions often overlooked by mainstream art history. Jones nods to figures like Ronald Bladen and Tony Smith while also evoking handmade instruments of rural Black musicians and the sonic sculptures of Harry Bertoia.
The sculptures aren’t meant to be played; their activation depends on time, weather, and chance. For Jones, this unpredictability—“anticipation and silence, activation and happenstance”—is central to the work’s meaning and power.
The Roof Garden commission, launched in 2013, has hosted varied interpretations. In recent years, Petrit Halilaj and Lauren Halsey have drawn on personal and cultural histories. Jones approached the project with a desire to engage both the skyline and the museum’s vast history.
Instead of a critique, Jones chose to “hold the space” and build on her decades-long practice. Inspired by visits to the Met’s musical instrument collection, she ultimately found her own voice sufficient: minimalist, conceptual, and grounded in Black sonic and sculptural legacies.
Jones’s upbringing in Cincinnati, education in Chicago and at Rutgers, and early love for experimental jazz shaped her aesthetic. She merged Minimalism with sonic culture, reworking the genre’s boundaries to include deeper, more diverse narratives.
Ensemble builds on earlier works like These (Mournful) Shores, a wind-activated harp sculpture from 2020. One current piece channels a 2013 work with zither-like strings; another references a one-string folk instrument akin to the diddley bow, connecting to musicians like Moses Williams and Louis Dotson, whose improvisational instruments echo Minimalist forms.
Jones hopes Ensemble, the final rooftop installation before the space is rebuilt, signals a broader shift in the Met’s engagement with abstraction and Minimalism. As she continues to create and curate exhibitions, she reflects on the ancestors and histories embedded in her work. When the wind stirs and a sculpture hums, she smiles: “Right on cue, there they are.”
