The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has hired Oluremi C. Onabanjo as its new curator in the Department of Photographs. She will begin at the museum this summer.
At the Met, Onabanjo will be focused on managing the Walther Collection, a 2025 gift of more than 6,500 historical and contemporary photographs and albums that spans Africa, China, Japan, Germany, Mexico, and the United States, among other locals. Onabanjo also has familiarity with the Walther Collection, having previously served as the director of exhibitions and collections for the collection’s New York outpost.
As part of her role, she will curate the Met’s second exhibition dedicated to the Walter Collection, scheduled for 2028. (The museum currently has on view a smaller exhibition drawing from the gift.)
Onabanjo’s role is a newly created one that is both focused on the Walther gift but also 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,” according to a Met spokesperson. Scheduled to open in 2030, the Tang Wing will provide a new home for the Met’s permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, with photography playing “an important role in shaping how art from the late nineteenth century to the present is presented across the Museum’s galleries,” per a release.
“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 said in a statement. “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 working on the Walther Collection, Onabanjo will also be tasked with curating exhibitions more broadly, focusing on 20th-century and contemporary photography and time-based media, with an eye toward the artistic scenes in Africa and Asia. She will also produce new scholarship and make new acquisitions for the Met, as well as collaborate with colleagues across the museum to incorporate the medium in various other exhibitions and presentations, irrespective of which department is organizing the exhibition.
“Oluremi C. Onabanjo is among the most compelling voices in contemporary photography today,” Met director and CEO Max Hollein said in a statement. “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 won’t be traveling far for her new job, as she is currently a photography curator at the Museum of Modern Art, about 30 blocks south. Onabanjo joined MoMA in 2021 as an associate curator and was promoted to the title of The Peter Schub Curator in 2024. At MoMA, she organized the 2023 edition of “New Photography” and cocurated the 2025 iteration, as well as organizing a solo show for Ming Smith and the museum’s current “Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination” (through July 25).
For the museum’s permanent collection, she acquired works by Gabrielle Goliath, Aline Motta, Marilyn Nance, Silvia Rosi, Eslanda Robeson, and Zofia Rydet, and organized sections of the collection galleries, such as “A Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession” and “Visual Vernaculars.”
Additionally, she served on the curatorial team for the 2021 Triennial of Photography Hamburg 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 photography department, said in a statement. “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.”
