Nineteen Seventy Six

Many of Guy Ngan’s 1970s sculptures reference architecture and cityscapes. Here, acrylic forms are grouped under a violet-coloured acrylic dome. The viewer looks in from above, as if onto a futuristic city. The sculpture recalls science fiction imagery, particularly that generated in the wake of NASA’s Apollo moon shots (1968-1972). It also connects to post-war architecture.

The dome is one of the most important elements of Cold War design. It was most famously deployed by the American architect Buckminster Fuller, who experimented from the late 1940s with the ‘geodesic’ dome as a new form of temporary, moveable architecture. He saw this as a universal building type that was perfectly fitted to the social, political and technological conditions of the 20^th-century. In 1960 Fuller and the Japanese architect Shoji Sadao proposed a 2km-diameter geodesic dome to cover midtown Manhattan. Aiming to create an entirely temperature-regulated environment, this high-tech vision of the future city is also linked to Cold War concerns about nuclear attack, and airborne atmospheric radiation.

Fuller and Sadao’s plan was documented through an iconic photomontage, to which Nineteen Seventy Six bears remarkable resemblance. In this sculpture Ngan engages with the aesthetics of Cold War art and design. He also loved to experiment with materials, and is here enjoying the curved, coloured, transparent forms that can be made with acrylic plastic.

About the artist