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 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, designers and architects living and working in China and rest of Asia– responses that form a host of enriching, humorous and critical insights. The project is organized on the occasion of John Körmeling’s design of the Dutch Pavilion, Happy Street, at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. His unconventional, cross-disciplinary stance towards the fields of architect ure, urban planning and design has led to particular selection criteria for the works from the Van Abbemuseum collection and from the Arthub-selected artists participating in this project.
The work of Thai artist, Surasi Kusolwong, for example will transform the exhibition space into a playground for a peculiar “treasure hunt”. The back of the gallery is filled with tonnes of thread waste, into which a gold necklace with the Chinese symbol for “Double Happiness” will be hidden every week – made available only to lucky members of the audience who find it. Another example is Comfortable Collective, an artist collective based in Shanghai set up by young Shanghainese artists and in this edition includes Gao Mingyan, Jin Shan, Li Mu and Maya Kramer. Comfortable is concerned with relational aspects of art-making and the role of the collection within an art system. In this case, the group has responded to the Van Abbemuseum’s collection by manipulating, copying, moulding an d dropping works from the collection, laboriously adding further layers to the finished art objects. How can an artist's attitude influence the perception of an entire collection?
Following the exhibition’s opening on the 29th April, 2010, there will be an extensive public programme, concentrated around the 15th and 16th of May, with a symposium “Last Two Decades Revisited”. This presents a mix of local and international responses to the project’s main conceits; performances by Julika Rudelius and Surasi Kusolwong, and a screening of the Asia Art Archive documentary “From Jean-Paul Sartre to Teresa Teng: Contemporary Cantonese Art in the 1980s.” Confirmed speakers and respondents include: Chen Tong, Carol Lu, Charles Esche, Zhang Peili, Li Zhenhua, Alexander Brandt, Victor Misiano, Kim Hyun Jin, Hu Jieming, Song Haidong, Jin Shan, and more. The weekend programme will be he ld at the theatre in the Dutch Culture Centre, Shanghai.
Participating artists
Lara Almacergui, Johanna Billing, Stanley Brouwn, Comfortable Collective (Jin Shan, Gao Mingyan, Li Mu, Maya Kramer), Cao Fei, Alicia Framis, Liu Gang, HHD_FUN (Wang Zhenfei & Wang Luming), Job Koelewijn, John Körmeling, Surasi Kusolwong, El Lissitzky, David Maljkovic, Julika Rudelius, Speedism, Xu Tan, Zhou Xiaohu, Xijing Men (Chen Shaoxiong, Gimhongsok, Tsuyoshi Okazawa).
Performances by
Surasi Kusolwong, Julika Rudelius, Zhou Xiaohu.
Curators
Defne Ayas, Remco de Blaaij, Charles Esche, Davide Quadrio
Partners
Netherlands China Arts Foundation, Gemeente Eindhoven, Dutch Culture Centre, DutchDFA (Dutch Design Fashion and Architecture), Shama Xujiahui
Arthub Asia is a multi-disciplinary organization devoted to
contemporary art creation in China and rest of Asia, founded in 2007. In collaboration with museums and other public / private spaces and institutions, it initiates and delivers ambitious art projects through a sustained dialogue with visual, performance, and new media artists. Arthub Asia is committed to furthering experimentation, knowledge-production and diversity among dedicated artists, art professionals, scholars, and arts organizations in the region.
