Musical Bodies 2026

"Musical Bodies," on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue location (Gallery 199) from June 7 through September 27, 2026, is the first major exhibition to explore the relationship between musical instruments and the human body. The show brings together roughly 130 instruments, paintings, sculptures, and drawings from The Met's own collection alongside important international loans, tracing 4,000 years of art and music history, from ancient Egyptian rattles and musical masterpieces by Titian and Degas to instrument-inspired apparel and one of Prince's guitars. Highlights include boundary-blurring works such as Nam June Paik's TV Cello, the circular PianoArc keyboard developed with Lady Gaga's keyboardist Brockett Parsons. Conceived by Bradley Strauchen-Scherer, Curator in the Met's Department of Musical Instruments, the exhibition was seven years in the making and organizes its holdings into six thematic sections examining instruments as reflections of the body and their roles in spirituality, sexuality, identity, and mortality, with loans from institutions including the Musée de la musique in Paris, the National Music Museum, and London's Royal College of Music. Beyond the objects on display, the exhibition also features an interactive space where visitors can make music through their own body movement.