Artist Jennie C. Jones has unveiled 'Ensemble', a new site-specific commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Roof Garden, on view until October 19. The installation features stark, powder-coated aluminum sculptures inspired by stringed instruments—a zither, a harp, and a Blues-inspired one-string—that incorporate acoustic elements, inviting viewers to listen as well as look. This is Jones's second large-scale outdoor project, following her 2020 work 'These (Mournful) Shores' at the Clark Art Institute, which used Aeolian harp principles to evoke the Middle Passage.
Jones's commission matters because it expands the Met's Roof Garden program into sonic territory, blending minimalist abstraction with Black cultural history and jazz-influenced sensibilities. The work challenges conventional outdoor monuments by adding an auditory dimension, encouraging visitors to engage intimately with the sculptures. Jones, who has spent three decades exploring under-recognized aspects of modernism through sound and material, continues to center diasporic subjectivity in her practice, making this installation a significant moment for both her career and the museum's engagement with contemporary art.