City Dreams at the Museum of Modern Art explores how Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez envisioned a future utopia through sculptures of imagi

In his 2000 diorama “Ville de Sète 3009,” Bodys Isek Kingelez imagined the French city on the Mediterranean as a future utopia. Electric lights glimmer by the orderly gardens and towering buildings, all constructed in buoyant colors and shapes, suggesting what he described as a “better, more prosperous world” than the one we have today. By setting that future a century from now, he also emphasized how much work must still be done to get there.

It’s one of the most sprawling of the over 30 “extreme maquettes,” as he called them, on view in Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan. Organized by Curator Sarah Suzuki with Curatorial Assistant Hillary Reder, the exhibition includes both cityscapes and single buildings, dating back to the 1980s.

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Bodys Isek Kingelez, “Paris Nouvel” (1989), paper, paperboard, and other various materials, 33 7/16 × 24 × 27 9/16″ (long-term loan from the Centre national des arts plastiques, France to the Château d’Oiron, France,
Bodys Isek Kingelez, “Paris Nouvel” (1989), paper, paperboard, and other various materials, 33 7/16 × 24 × 27 9/16″ (long-term loan from the Centre national des arts plastiques, France to the Château d’Oiron, France, © Cnap (France), photo by Frédéric Pignoux, Studio Ludo)