Kandors Full Set

2005-2009

21 cities; tinted urethane resin 21 bottles; hand colored Pyrex glass 18 bottle stoppers; 10 silicone rubber, and 8 tinted urethane resin 6 plinth; MDF, wood veneer, Plexiglas and lighting fixture 20 round pedestals; MDF, wood veneer, tempered glass, and lighting fixture

Variable dimensions

It took California artist Mike Kelley three years to complete the multifaceted, technically advanced and hypnotically beautiful Kandors Full Set. It is a bright, magical scene with cities of coloured glass, sometimes on pedestals, sometimes under a bell or shrouded in smoke whose impermanence is captured by video cameras.

The 21 miniature cities are made of tinted urethane resin, which looks like ice or crystal. They refer to the mythical city of Kandor, the capital of Krypton, Superman’s home planet, which is trapped under a glass dome. These utopian, fantasised, urban motifs are based on the imaginary visual world of comic books, but in a completed or already eroded form, like monumental traces of primordial civilizations.

The entire huge installation Kandors Full Set is in the Pinault Collection. It was presented during the 2009 major group show "Mapping the Studio" at the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana.
Exhibitions