Art & Design alum Jennie C. Jones’s (MFA’96) sonic sculptural installation Ensemble opened on April 15 in New York City as this year’s Roof Garden Commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ensemble, a trio of sculptures “sitting,” as Jones tells it in a behind-the-scenes video detailing the commission, “on thousands of years of art history” at one of the world’s premier art museums, offers an immersive experience, one in keeping with Jones’s history of creating works in dialogue with music. The stark, architectural pieces stand—some tower, some appear to crouch—as Minimalist acoustic sculptures, angular, wine-colored aluminum and concrete travertine structures bearing steel strings, like musical instruments. A fourth piece, a bright red perimeter, delineates the area.
“These objects are instruments and sculptures at the same time,” Jones explains. “They hold this potential in between these two worlds. That is a magical place to exist.”
Set against the backdrop of the New York City skyline, the experience of Ensemble is meant to be ever-changing, between the sounds that shifting winds nudge into being, the views, and the movement of light across the sculptures’ surfaces.
“When people are moving through the space, they will have a lot of surprises as they turn corners and edges. Energy appears, red appears, a line, a sharpness, in the same way a sonic sharpness can bring you into a new space,” says Jones.
Jones also drew on The Met’s collection of musical instruments.
“I always had a relationship to the yearning of the instruments that wanted to be played, or that were meant to be used, but were specifically on display,” she reflects, “. . . the instruments [in Ensemble] . . . are sculptures that have the potential to be played, but that are not necessarily intended to be played. They’re kind of in between.”
Jones’s Ensemble will serve as the final rooftop installation at The Met until 2030. The exhibition remains on view through October 19, 2025.
Watch Jones discuss Ensemble:
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Image credit: Jason Frank Rothenberg