Bodys Isek Kingelez at MoMA

MoMA presents a full retrospective of Bodys Isek Kingelez (1948–2015), the Congolese sculptor who worked with paper, commercial packaging, and materials from everyday life to create what he called “extreme maquettes” that encompass civic buildings, public monuments, and private pavilions. Bodys Isek Kingelez spans the artist’s career over a 25-year period, ranging from early works that were included in the landmark 1989 exhibition Magiciens de la terre at the Centre Pompidou to his streamlined, dramatic forms of the 2000s. The first retrospective of Kingelez’s work, and the first substantial monographic presentation of his work in the US, this exhibition features works from each of the key periods of his career, from early single-building sculptures, to spectacular sprawling cities, to futuristic late works, which incorporate increasingly unorthodox materials. Kingelez was previously featured in the MoMA exhibition Projects 59: Architecture as Metaphor (1997). Although his work has long been featured in major international exhibitions, this will the first opportunity in New York to explore the full breadth of his career.