Bodys Isek Kingelez

City Dreams

May 26, 2018–Jan 1, 2019

MoMA

Bodys Isek Kingelez. Kimbembele Ihunga. 1994. Paper, cardboard, polystyrene, mixed media, 51 3/16 × 72 13/16 × 126" (130 × 185 × 320 cm). CAAC - The Pigozzi Collection, Geneva. © Bodys Isek Kingelez. Photo: Maurice Aeschimann. Courtesy CAAC - The Pigozzi Collection
  • MoMA, Floor 3, Exhibition Galleries The Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries

“Without a model, you are nowhere. A nation that can’t make models is a nation that doesn’t understand things, a nation that doesn’t live,” said visionary artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (1948–2015). 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. Kingelez’s “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 architecture—issues that resonate profoundly today.

Kingelez’s vibrant, ambitious sculptures are created from an incredible range of everyday materials and found objects—colored paper, commercial packaging, plastic, soda cans, and bottle caps—all meticulously repurposed and arranged. While he didn’t 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 d’Hirochima (1991) addresses the condition of postwar Japan; and U.N. (1995) attests to the organization’s global peacekeeping efforts and the artist’s 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 Fantôme (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 Kingelez’s 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 artist’s words, a “better, more peaceful world.”

This exhibition includes an interactive virtual-reality experience that allows visitors to explore Ville Fantôme, one of Kingelez’s large-scale city sculptures. Suitable for children 13 and up with adult supervision.

Organized by Sarah Suzuki, Curator, with Hillary Reder, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art.

Exhibition design is produced in collaboration with the artist Carsten Höller.

Special thanks to Jean Pigozzi and CAAC—The Pigozzi Collection.

The exhibition is made possible by Allianz, a partner of contemporary art at MoMA.

Major support is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art and by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art.

Generous funding is provided by The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund with major contributions from the Estate of Ralph L. Riehle, Alice and Tom Tisch, Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, Brett and Daniel Sundheim, Karen and Gary Winnick, The Marella and Giovanni Agnelli Fund for Exhibitions, and Oya and Bülent Eczacıbaşı.

Special thanks to Oculus.

Publication

  • Bodys Isek Kingelez Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 144 pages

Events

Artists

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].