The Met Hires MoMA’s Star Photography Curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has employed Oluremi C. Onabanjo as its new curator within the Department of Photographs. She will start on the museum this summer time.

At the Met, Onabanjo might be targeted on managing the Walther Collection, a 2025 reward of greater than 6,500 historic and modern images and albums that spans Africa, China, Japan, Germany, Mexico, and the United States, amongst different locals. Onabanjo additionally has familiarity with the Walther Collection, having beforehand served because the director of exhibitions and collections for the gathering’s New York outpost.

As a part of her position, she is going to curate the Met’s second exhibition devoted to the Walter Collection, scheduled for 2028. (The museum presently has on view a smaller exhibition drawing from the reward.)

Onabanjo’s position is a newly created one that’s each targeted on the Walther reward but additionally a part of a “broader effort to build out the Department of Photographs as we look ahead to the Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art,” in accordance with a Met spokesperson. Scheduled to open in 2030, the Tang Wing will present a brand new dwelling for the Met’s everlasting assortment of recent and modern artwork, with images taking part in “an important role in shaping how art from the late nineteenth century to the present is presented across the Museum’s galleries,” per a launch.   

“I am honored to join The Met at such a dynamic moment as it looks ahead to the future of Photography in the Museum,” Onabanjo stated in an announcement. “The Met’s extraordinary collection and its commitment to presenting art across cultures and time offer a powerful context for rethinking the histories of photography.”

In addition to engaged on the Walther Collection, Onabanjo may also be tasked with curating exhibitions extra broadly, specializing in Twentieth-century and modern images and time-based media, with an eye fixed towards the creative scenes in Africa and Asia. She may also produce new scholarship and make new acquisitions for the Met, in addition to collaborate with colleagues throughout the museum to include the medium in numerous different exhibitions and displays, regardless of which division is organizing the exhibition.

“Oluremi C. Onabanjo is among the most compelling voices in contemporary photography today,” Met director and CEO Max Hollein stated in an announcement. “Her scholarship and curatorial vision reflect a deep engagement with the histories of the medium and a thoughtful approach to the ways photography shapes our understanding of the world. As we look toward the future of art at The Met—including the development of the Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art—Onabanjo’s perspective will be invaluable in advancing a more expansive and globally connected narrative of art, fostering new dialogues across departments, cultures, and time.”

Onabanjo received’t be touring far for her new job, as she is presently a images curator on the Museum of Modern Art, about 30 blocks south. Onabanjo joined MoMA in 2021 as an affiliate curator and was promoted to the title of The Peter Schub Curator in 2024. At MoMA, she organized the 2023 version of “New Photography” and cocurated the 2025 iteration, in addition to organizing a solo present for Ming Smith and the museum’s present “Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination” (by way of July 25).

For the museum’s everlasting assortment, she acquired works by Gabrielle Goliath, Aline Motta, Marilyn Nance, Silvia Rosi, Eslanda Robeson, and Zofia Rydet, and arranged sections of the gathering galleries, reminiscent of “A Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession” and “Visual Vernaculars.”

Additionally, she served on the curatorial crew for the 2021 Triennial of PhotographyHamburg and was the inaugural recipient of the Vilcek Foundation Prize for Curatorial Work in 2025.

“Onabanjo brings a remarkable depth of knowledge and a rigorous approach to the study of photography,” Jeff Rosenheim, who leads the Met’s images division, stated in an announcement. “Her work reflects a nuanced understanding of the medium’s histories and its global trajectories, as well as a strong commitment to expanding the collection in meaningful and enduring ways.”