June 3, 2003

MASS MoCA to Show Work of Alain Bublex

July 3, 2003, through December, 2003

(North Adams, Mass.) Beginning July 3, 2003, MASS MoCA will present the first United States one person exhibition of the work of French artist Alain Bublex featuring selections from his series, Plug-in City (2000) in the Works on Paper and Meehan Gallery. Alain Bublex's artistic practice hovers somewhere between thoughtful historical investigations of city planning and a fanciful, poetic interface with urban reality. In some of his projects, Bublex dusts off urban planning proposals of the 20th century that were dismissed as utopian and attempts to bring them to life. His photographic works become vantage points from which to view the potential transformation of the lived environment. The show is presented in conjunction with Fantastic - MASS MoCA's current exhibition of the work of five artists who embrace a world of hallucinatory, visionary, and utopian ideas.

The Plug-In City (2000) project was based on a proposal drawn up in 1964 by the English architect Peter Cook, a member of the experimental Archigram group. Cook, a visionary architect and urban planner, imagined a form of disposable and mobile urban design where homes and bridges can simply be snapped-on or plugged-in. The proposal consisted of enormous building frameworks where many standardized and interchangeable cells could be connected. In providing a continually shifting landscape, the town would meet the immediate needs of its inhabitants, a town in permanent state of movement and change. Peter Cook's project was of course dismissed as utopian and never built. However, Alain Bublex has found its legacy alive and well in the form of the prefab bunagalows used on large construction sites. Bublex finds hints of past utopias in the world of today. His Plug-In City (2000) series allows a viewer to entertain the possibility of Peter Cook's proposal coming to life with the assistance of these modular, transitory homes.

Alain Bublex: Plug-in City (2000) is made possible by Etant donnés: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art.

Alain Bublex was born in 1961 in Lyon, France. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Macon and the Ecole Superieure de Design Industriel in Paris. He lives in Lyon and works somewhere else. A former designer for automobile maker Renault, Bublex most recent solo exhibition was at Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois in Paris. His work is in the collection of the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain; Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris; and FRAC Rhone-Alpes, FRAC Provence, FRAC Basse-Normandie, and FRAC Alsace.

MASS MoCA is the country's largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts and is located in North Adams, Massachusetts, on a restored 19th-century factory campus. Through August 31, MASS MoCA's galleries are open from 10 – 6 every day. Gallery admission is $9 for adults, $3 for children 6 – 16, and free for children under 6. Members admitted free year-round. For additional information, call 413 662 2111 or visit www.massmoca.org.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org