Xiaofu Wang - The Tower (signed)

Nearest Truth Editions 2024

Genex Tower, in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, is one of the most iconic buildings in the former Yugoslavia. Consisting of two towers connected by a bridge, the giant brutalist structure looms above the rest of the city, standing stoically as the world changes around it.

Designed in the 1970s by architect Mihajlo Mitrović, the left side of the building consists of 30 floors of residential apartments, while the commercial tower on the right served as the headquarters of the now-defunct trading company Generaleksport, the "crown jewel" of Yugoslav industry, as one former lawyer for the company put it.

The labyrinthian networks of offices in the commercial tower housed Generaleksport's dozens of subsidiary companies, while the restaurant on the top floor was the setting for important business meetings. Today, only two floors are occupied, while the others have become eerie museum displays of the building's past glory and some of its more nefarious secrets.

In the residential tower, hundreds of residents have lived out daily routines and personal dramas. It's a place where couples fell in love, teenagers went through rights of passage, a security guard penned a science fiction novella, and a computer engineer painted Mondrians in unexpected corners of the building. More recently, the building has also been used as a set for dozens of films, TV shows and music videos, and a YouTube star created his content in a studio in the building's basement.

Despite being laden with a heavy ideological and historical legacy, Genex Tower is impossible to pigeonhole, and its unchanging exterior belies a dynamic interior. 'The Tower' is a subjective documentation of how the past intersects with the present in a place full of possibility.

100 pages
280 x 287mm
Hardcover, cloth-bound with tipped-in photo