Postcolonial Utopianism

With “Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams,” New York’s Museum of Modern Art mounts the first U.S. retrospective of the late Congolese artist’s vibrant models of imagined buildings and cityscapes. Kingelez created these “extreme maquettes” from colored paper, packaging, bottle caps, and other found objects; each embodied his hope for the future of postcolonial urban environments throughout Africa, and served as a counterpoint to his experience in the haphazard exponential growth of Kinshasa, Congo. The exhibition spans Kingelez’s career, including early single-building models, sprawling cityscapes, and later futuristic maquettes.