Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently showing 'Musical Bodies' at The Met Fifth Avenue, an exhibition it describes as the first major presentation to examine the relationship between musical instruments and the human body. The show brings together some 130 artworks and instruments, ranging from instruments themselves to paintings, sculptures and drawings.
The Met’s account of the exhibition frames music as more than sound or performance. It presents instruments as objects that help shape human expression, connection and experience, and uses the body as a lens for understanding how people communicate who they are, what they value and what they believe. The museum’s accompanying online material also situates the display within the breadth of its musical-instrument holdings, which it says include examples from around 300 BCE to the present and from six continents plus the Pacific Islands.
That wider collection context is central to the museum’s presentation. In the newsletter material tied to the show, The Met points to examples that move across geography and type, from West African instruments associated with griot traditions to Asian instruments such as the śankh, and from bagpipes appearing in manuscripts and decorative arts to a modern archtop guitar. The museum also notes that its collection includes what it describes as the world’s oldest surviving piano.
The online features connected to 'Musical Bodies' place particular emphasis on the ways instruments have been read, made and performed as extensions of the human form. One feature looks at the cello in relation to ideas of gender, while another considers how musical objects can be reimagined beyond conventional use. The exhibition material also references Oliver Beer’s 'Vessel Orchestra' from 2019, described by The Met as the first sound-based installation in the museum’s history, in which the artist selected 32 hollow objects from the collection, placed microphones inside them and connected them to a keyboard to “play” them.
The exhibition is presented alongside The Met’s digital magazine and newsletter programming, which this month is also focused on music as a conduit for history, culture and human connection. The museum’s online package includes essay-style features, collection spotlights and video tour content tied to the exhibition, extending the show’s themes beyond the gallery floor.
According to The Met’s installation caption, 'Musical Bodies' opened on June 7, 2026 and is scheduled to run through September 27, 2026 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum says the exhibition unites instruments with works of art to illuminate how music and the body have shaped one another across time and place.
