Since the beginning of the Industrial Age in the 19th century, artists have increasingly focused on the cityscape, a development that parallels the exponential growth of urban centers. In the early decades of the 20th century, the depiction of these densely populated areas became a hallmark of modernism, as exemplified by the Italian Futurist movement.
The skyscraper emerged as the architectural symbol of the modern landscape. This can be seen, at different times and in distinctly varied styles, in the unsettling paintings of Ugo Pozzo, Marcel Gromaire, and Henri Cueco.
While every city is distinguished by emblematic monuments, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, transfigured here by Philippe Cognée, it also reveals itself in its margins, as in the collective housing depicted by Ilya Kabakov or industrial sites, of which Wilhelm Sasnal creates a kind of archetypal portrait.
The globalisation of the megacity phenomenon is reflected in Cheikh Ndiaye's view of Abidjan and Cui Je's painting, which offers a futuristic vision of Beijing.
