The Met unveils large-scale animal sculptures honoring Indigenous culture and the natural world

Four large-scale bronze sculptures depicting animals have been installed outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Created by artist Jeffrey Gibson, the installation, titled “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” has become a part of the museum’s iconic Fifth Avenue neoclassical exterior as the 2025 Genesis Facade Commission. The 10-foot sculptures reference animals(a hawk, a squirrel, a coyote, and a deer) that are significant to Indigenous culture and also live in Central Park and the Hudson Valley.

Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, collected driftwood along the banks of the Hudson River, near his home, to create the artwork, the artist told the Wall Street Journal. He bundled the wood into forms and wrapped them in animal hides, using wax, wood, and taxidermied pelts to create the original forms. Then the creatures were digitally scanned and cast in bronze.

Gibson told the newspaper he was inspired by the Met’s collection and found a common theme of referring to animals as sacred among different cultures

“I think there’s an Indigenous kinship in these worldviews that encourages us to respect animals and to see ourselves not as stewards over them, but as peers,” Gibson said.

The series is inspired by Jacques Derrida’s book “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” which explores the “violence inherent in the human domination of animals,” according to a press release.

The playful sculptures stand upright, blurring the line between animal and human, and the “animate and inanimate.”

“Jeffrey Gibson is one of the most remarkable artists of his generation and a pioneering figure within the field of native and Indigenous art,” Max Hollein, the Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer, said.

“These new works are based on his signature use of unconventional materials and reimagined forms, employing them to explore often-overlooked histories and the natural world. We’re thrilled to have his monumental sculptures installed on The Met’s iconic Fifth Avenue facade.”

Gibson, the first Native artist to represent the United States at last year’s Venice Biennale, is the sixth contemporary artist to take over the Met’s facade.

“Jeffrey Gibson is an artist brilliantly attuned to the varieties of life that our world holds—the human, the animal, the land itself,” David Breslin, Leonard A. Lauder Curator in Charge, Modern and Contemporary Art, said.

“His art vibrates and bristles with that life, the histories that never leave us, and the futures that his vision makes possible.”

The Genesis Facade commission will be on view at the Met’s main entrance facade through June 9, 2026.

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