Kandor the Miniature Kryptonian City in a Bottle by Mike Kelley

By Alex in Art, Comics & Cartoons on Jul 11, 2009 at 12:10 am

Los Angeles-based artist Mike Kelley brought the bottle city of Kandor from the Superman comic series to life. If you don’t know, Kandor is a Kryptonian city miniaturized by Brainiac and kept in a bottle by Superman:

The exhibition of new works by Mike Kelley at the Jablonka Galerie features sculptures, lenticular lightboxes, and videos related to the fictional city of Kandor, the capitol of Superman’s home planet Krypton. According to the Superman mythos, Kandor is the only remaining vestige of the exploded Krypton, and the city is preserved, in a reduced state, in a bottle in Superman’s possession. Interestingly, the image of Kandor was never codified and the numerous representations of it in the comic book throughout the years vary widely in appearance. In this exhibition Kelley reconstructs ten unique versions of Kandor, with its enclosing bottle, which, despite obvious differences, purport to depict the same city.

John Struan over at Super Punch has more pics and a video clip from the
exhibit: LinkThanks John!


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  1. Thomas
    Jul 11th, 2009 at 12:56 am

    (Psst, there’s no S in Kandor.)

  2. Alex
    Jul 11th, 2009 at 2:42 am

    Oops – let me hand over my Superman fan card right this instance! I knew I shouldn’t have relied on memory to type up this post ;)

  3. SenorMysterioso
    Jul 11th, 2009 at 11:58 am

    This is pretty cool.

    Kelley has made some really bizarre stuff. Two works come to mind; a video with a crazy depressed clown and a photo of feces smeared characters apparently giving birth to stuffed animals. Part of the whole bad boy artist thing which I never really got into. I think its just an excuse to be weird.

  4. Prairie Dog
    Jul 11th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Ya know, between all the various flavors of Kryptonite, Superman himself, Supergirl, the three outcasts in the Phantom Zone and the myriad of flotsam and jetsam from that doomed planet that seem to some how wind up on Earth, including, apparently an entire city in a jar, one would think they could recreate the entire planet in whole if they swept it all together.

  5. Finn Bakker
    Jul 12th, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    Prairie Dog – aheh. That’s exactly what’s happened in the comics recently. Kandor got re-biggened. And suddenly there’s about 100,000 Kryptonians on Earth, with the *same powers as Superman*. And most of them seem to be quite egotistical and think they’re superior to the Earthlings; so Supes relocates them to Mars. Supergirl’s mother is their new leader, and she’s brought Zod, Non and Ursa back from the Phantom Zone as her military aides…


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