16 Jan 2017

Christoph Gielen SUBURBAN BUBBLE Zoned for Monoculture at IKOB - Museum of Contemporary Art

Christoph Gielen, an artist who lives and works in New York, is known for breathtaking photographs taken from extreme heights. They show American cities in their geometric perfection and highways as a meandering network. But these photographs are more than beautiful images. They are formal studies of our appropriation of space and the impact of an excessive urge toward expansion upon our living spaces. Since the beginning of the year, parts of the series CIPHERS have been on permanent loan at the IKOB; they are being exhibited in Belgium for the first time.

'By documenting structures of prosperity in a technically highly-developed society, I set out to provide a telling glimpse of the present impasse of finding habitation for everyone on the planet while also preserving it – and to inspire a yearning for an ecological symbiosis between nature, society, and the built form.'

Christoph Gielen