Home People Exhibitions Venues Images About

Bodys Isek Kingelez

Born, 1948 in Democratic Republic of the Congo

From the archived Documenta 11 website : www.documenta12.de//archiv/d11/data/english/index.html

“Since the late 1970s, self-taught Bodys Isek Kingelez has gained recognition for his vibrant and meticulously ornate phantom cityscapes made out of glue, paper, carton, plywood and miscellaneous other materials from the packaging industry. Visionary in character, Kingelez’s aggregate model worlds comprise corporate and public buildings such as hotels, stadiums, parliaments and other elements of urban scenery. The modernism of rigid grids and the functionalist architecture of Western city planning is broken in favor of an organic, bright and dynamic urban fabric interwoven with autobiographical references. By reworking the trauma of colonialism, the artist shows us the hidden underside, the historical conditions of a project where architecture becomes the carrier of social meaning and hierarchies.”