Bodys isek kingelez

Published in conjunction with the exhibition 'Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams' held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 26th May 2018-1st January 2019. Without a model, you are nowhere. A nation that cant make models is a nation that doesnt understand things, a nation that doesnt live, said visionary artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (19482015). Based in then-Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), following its independence from Belgium, Kingelez made sculptures of imagined buildings and cities that reflected dreams for his country, his continent, and the world. Kingelezs extreme maquettes offer fantastic, utopian models for a more harmonious society of the future. An optimistic alternative to his own experience of urban life in his home city of Kinshasa, which grew exponentially and organically with urban planning and infrastructure often unable to keep step, his work explores urgent questions around urban growth, economic inequity, how communities and societies function, and the rehabilitative power of architectureissues that resonate profoundly today. Kingelezs vibrant, ambitious sculptures are created from an incredible range of everyday materials and found objectscolored paper, commercial packaging, plastic, soda cans, and bottle capsall meticulously repurposed and arranged. While he didnt travel outside of Zaire until 1989, he was highly attuned to world events and deeply concerned with social issues. The Scientific Center of Hospitalisation the SIDA (1991), for example, references the AIDS crisis; Palais dHirochima (1991) addresses the condition of postwar Japan; and U.N. (1995) attests to the organizations global peacekeeping efforts and the artists own sense of civic responsibility. In the complex multi-building cityscape Kimbembele Ihunga (1994), the artist reimagines his agricultural home village complete with a soccer stadium, banks, restaurants, and skyscrapers. In Ville Fantome (1996), which will be accompanied by a Virtual Reality experience for visitors, the artist has imagined a peaceful city in which doctors and police are not needed. The first US retrospective of Kingelezs work, the exhibition spans his full career, from early single-building sculptures, to spectacular sprawling cities, to futuristic late works, which incorporate increasingly unorthodox materials. These rarely shown works are a call for us all to imagine, in the artists words, a better, more peaceful world

Published in conjunction with the exhibition 'Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams' held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 26th May 2018-1st January 2019. Without a model, you are nowhere. A nation that cant make models is a nation that doesnt understand things, a nation that doesnt live, said visionary artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (19482015). Based in then-Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), following its independence from Belgium, Kingelez made sculptures of imagined buildings and cities that reflected dreams for his country, his continent, and the world. Kingelezs extreme maquettes offer fantastic, utopian models for a more harmonious society of the future. An optimistic alternative to his own experience of urban life in his home city of Kinshasa, which grew exponentially and organically with urban planning and infrastructure often unable to keep step, his work explores urgent questions around urban growth, economic inequity, how communities and societies function, and the rehabilitative power of architectureissues that resonate profoundly today. Kingelezs vibrant, ambitious sculptures are created from an incredible range of everyday materials and found objectscolored paper, commercial packaging, plastic, soda cans, and bottle capsall meticulously repurposed and arranged. While he didnt travel outside of Zaire until 1989, he was highly attuned to world events and deeply concerned with social issues. The Scientific Center of Hospitalisation the SIDA (1991), for example, references the AIDS crisis; Palais dHirochima (1991) addresses the condition of postwar Japan; and U.N. (1995) attests to the organizations global peacekeeping efforts and the artists own sense of civic responsibility. In the complex multi-building cityscape Kimbembele Ihunga (1994), the artist reimagines his agricultural home village complete with a soccer stadium, banks, restaurants, and skyscrapers. In Ville Fantome (1996), which will be accompanied by a Virtual Reality experience for visitors, the artist has imagined a peaceful city in which doctors and police are not needed. The first US retrospective of Kingelezs work, the exhibition spans his full career, from early single-building sculptures, to spectacular sprawling cities, to futuristic late works, which incorporate increasingly unorthodox materials. These rarely shown works are a call for us all to imagine, in the artists words, a better, more peaceful world