Double Infinity Publication

The publication, designed by Dutch designer, Joost Grootens, seeks to map a world of crossovers and collisions between art and urban design starting from both Eindhoven and Shanghai. Through photographic essays Jiang Jun and Ingmar Swalue conceptually and aesthetically locate these strange but close sites for our comparison. The book includes contributions by the artists and curators of Double Infinity and an interview with Pieter van Wesemael, an urban designer and professor at the Technical University Eindhoven in Architectural Design and Urban Culture. “Today, tomorrow, but not too far” is a quote by Van Wesemael, in which he considers the pragmatic realism in the 21st century World Expo in contrast to the focus on history in the 19th and the focus on the future in the 20th century.

Presented as part of the exhibition Double Infinity.

Double Infinity is a collaborative encounter between the Van Abbemuseum and Arthub Asia, situated in and around the Dutch Culture Centre in Shanghai, parallel to the World Expo 2010. The Double Infinity project loops through and crosses over itself time and again. It is at one and the same moment an exhibition, a performance series, a lecture programme, a publication, a promotional tool, a celebration, a collaboration and a playful look at international relations. It marks the first time that a European museum opens itself and its collection to the responses of artists living and working in China – responses that form a host of enriching, humorous and critical insights.

Publication
Joost Grootens (design), Clare Butcher (editor), Ingmar Swalue (photography), Jiang Jun (text and photography), texts by the curators Charles Esche, Defne Ayas, Davide Quadrio and Remco de Blaaij