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Bodys Isek Kingelez was born in the bitter cauldron of dying Belgian colonialism in the then Belgian Congo.
No one has ever had a vision like this, he once said.
The show has been up since this summer and I dont usually wait this long to write about something.
But Ive returned to the show time and time again relishing its good faith utopianism.
(It runs through January 1.)
Curated by Sarah Suzuki with Hillary Reder, the exhibition is called City Dreams.
Everything is showy, tricked-out, and glitzy.
Here, Modernism turns rhapsodic, hysterical, even fruitcake.
Kingelez model buildings are often corporate headquarters.
The richer and bigger, the better.
Instead of any restrictive dictum of form follows function, Kingelezs is an optical concatenation of sculptural-architectural ideas.
Its all some Las Vegas-Persian manuscript imperium of the mind.
As perfected and fantastical as these maquettes are, theyre really phantom cities.
(I didnt see a parking place in the whole show.)
People are never included, nor cars, no signs of life.
Its like aliens left these cities here.
These megalopolises reduce people to little more than performing fleas.
This is where psychosis inflicted on Africa by European colonialism enters Kingelezs cities of the mind.
Adjaye calls this the deliberate naivete in Kingelezs sculptures.
(A sort of proactive/aggressive defense mechanism, perhaps.)
He went on to wow biennial crowds for decades, until his death in 2015.
Forward-looking collector Jean Pigozzi owns dozens of these masterpieces.
Pigozzi has already generously gifted many of these works to numerous museums.
Its beautiful innocence and brilliant urban thinking for the future.
