CITY SLICKER
The press surrounding MoMA’s retrospective of Bodys Isek Kingelez can’t really pin down who he is or what he does. It refers to him as a sculptor and an architect but he’s neither; he’s an artist who crafts maquettes proposing vibrant new cityscapes. He might most accurately referred to as a dreamer.
This Congolan’s remarkable tableaux, built to scale on rigid bases, just as conventional architectural models are, propose brilliant new facilities for cities in Zaire and around the world. He has designed the shells for hospitals, laboratories, hotels, casinos and government buildings. His schemes are megastructures that have the bravura and unembarrassed grandiosity of themed amusement parks, gated resorts, and Olympic villages.
Kingelez has no formal training as an artist, architect or planner. His assemblage are crafted from mundane materials: cardboad boxes, colored paper, tin cans, magic marker and crayon. They are impressive in their formal inventiveness and raw physical charisma. He devises structures with never-before-seen geometries, profiles and ornaments. He works in a palette of bright primary colors, highlighting elements with mirror, glitter, and foil. There’s no concern for good taste, restraint, balance or proportion, or for the fashions of modernism. Kingelez crafts cities that are intoxicated with the notions of progress and development, shaping a joyful new world of activity and prosperity.
Bodys Isek Kingelez, Kimbembele Ihunga, 1994.
Photo by Dennis Doorly
© 2018 MoMA.
Image used courtesy of the artist and MoMA.