Jeremy Deller, Has the World Changed or Have I Changed?, 2000. Performance, Expo 2000, Hanover, Germany. Courtesy the artist. © Jeremy Deller

I first met Jeremy Deller at his studio in London in 2000. It was my last stop in the city en route to Heathrow and had been prefaced by two recent encounters with Jeremy’s work that heightened the anticipation of our meeting. As part of the Tate Britain show Intelligence, he’d presented his collaborative “Folk Archive” project with fellow artist Alan Kane which functions as an ongoing compendium of the art and cultural production of everyday contemporary Britons. I was blown away not only by the breadth and volume of the material, but also by his redefining the notion of what “folk art” could mean and represent—as something that could truly embody the creativity of a people rather than merely signifying a particular genre of art. The other was a more subtle and subdued work presented as part of the exhibition Protest and Survive at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, titled Has the World Changed or Have I Changed? (2000). I immediately recognized the phrase from the song “The Queen is Dead” by the legendary 1980s Manchester The Smiths. Both the song and the eponymously-titled album that it opens were a staple of my musical life as a Chicago-area teenager, yet I’d never really meditated on that lyric until prompted by Deller’s intervention. The work itself—represented as part of the larger installation Beyond the White Walls (2012) in CAM’s presentation of Jeremy Deller: Joy in People (opening February 1)—features documentation of a day that Deller spent with a circus clown in and around the German town of Hanover. The droll tragicomedy of the situation fit perfectly with the sense of world-weariness of the title phrase. While its appearance in the middle of The Smiths’ song is mitigated by the momentum of Johnny Marr’s urgent guitar, placed in this new context it becomes a somewhat maudlin reflection on growing old, on the passage of time, and one’s ability to truly feel in touch with the present moment. I suspect that both Marr’s guitar and a teenaged lack of life-perspective conspired to obscure the lyric for me in 1986, but since then I cannot help but reflect on the phrase when confronted with some new cultural phenomenon, the appeal of which I cannot fathom.

The forthcoming opening of Jeremy Deller’s survey exhibition at CAM has prompted me to ask the question “has the world changed or have I changed” once again from perhaps a more affirmative and optimistic perspective. The world HAS changed since The Smiths first posed that question to me, as have I—thanks, in part, to Jeremy’s work. As the exhibition demonstrates through a range of experiences—from a re-creation of Deller’s first show in his parent’s home to an exploration of the life and times of British glam-wrestler Adrian Street—there certainly is joy to be had in the things that people do, say, make, and sing—things that in large and small ways change the world and our relationship to it.

By Dominic Molon, Chief Curator

This past week, CAM participated in the inaugural edition of EXPO CHICAGO, arguably the most substantial and successful attempt to bring a viable and relevant international art fair back to the Midwest. We were represented with an extraordinary booth project by Lauren Adams titled We the People, an extension of her Front Room project at CAM currently on view through October 14th. It became one of the biggest hits of the fair, including an elegantly immersive display of wallpaper that Adams designed based on a pattern from the Revolutionary War era (1775–1783) and featuring slogans from Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party protests in recent years. The artist was on site and at given times throughout the day would work with visitors to paint their own protest slogans on ceramic plates that were assembled on a shelf towards the top of the booth, for which the participants would receive a commemorative tea towel (designed by Adams) in exchange. Assistant Curator Kelly Shindler, who organized both the booth and the Front Room project, heroically manned the operation throughout and served as interpreter for the work and as an ambassador for the museum. When originally presented with this extraordinary opportunity by the EXPO CHICAGO organizers to create visibility and awareness for the institution with the booth, my initial inclination was admittedly to present something more static and less labor-intensive. I am immeasurably grateful to both Adams and Shindler for persevering with a plan that made the project more interactive and, as a result, much more engaged, exciting, and effective in translating the energy and spirit of CAM’s program to a broader audience.

I made my own contribution to CAM’s participation in EXPO CHICAGO as part of a panel discussion with my colleagues Michael Darling, Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, and Lisa Dorin, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, moderated by art critic Paul Laster. We’d agreed to focus on art fairs themselves and how museum curators relate to them, function within them, and utilize them, and so forth. Having witnessed the rise and fall of the art fairs in Chicago more or less first-hand in my 16 years in the curatorial department at the MCA, I could attest to the critical loss of collective self-identity, momentum, and urgency felt by visual arts community as it became apparent that New York, then Miami, were redefining the landscape for art fairs in America. I also spoke to a more personal shift in how I approach art fairs, having moved from a collecting institution to CAM, with the emphasis placed more on spending time with donors, working on exhibitions in conversations with gallerists and artists at the fair, general networking, and, of course, seeing and absorbing as much art as possible.

Highlights from the fair included a stunning painting by Christina Ramberg (subject of a CAM exhibition next summer) at Russell Bowman Fine Art, as well as drawings by Ramberg at both David Nolan and Corbett vs Dempsey. The latter gallery’s booth featured an incredible range of works by artists such as Albert Oehlen, Peter Saul, and new favorite Keiichi Tanaami (careful … they’re a bit naughty!!). Inigo Manglano-Ovalle’s Dirty Bomb, 2008, part of the curated show In/Situ, was also fantastic. Other hits for me included Lorna Simpson’s collages at Salon 94, Richard Hamilton’s vacuum-formed Guggenheim relief at Allan Koppel, the Philip Guston at William Shearburn’s booth, and the Paul Cowan paintings at Clifton Benevento. Front Room alumnus John Opera (January 2011) had extraordinary new work at Andrew Rafacz’s booth and forthcoming Front Room artist Anthony Pearson had a lovely two-person show with legendary Chicago painter Julia Fish at Shane Campbell’s Lincoln Park space.

Lauren Adams (R) with We the People participant.

All images above: Lauren Adams, We the People, installation views at EXPO CHICAGO, September 20-23, 2012. Photography: Clare Britt

Having returned to St. Louis from Sedalia the day before, Friday featured the Silverado 2500 back at CAM … though only for a few hours as I was soon making a trip to Lambert International Airport for a meeting to discuss the possibility of the museum’s using a bank of windows near baggage claim in some way (either for publicity or an off-site exhibition.) After work, Lara and I took the truck to one of our favorite restaurants in town, Home Wine and Kitchen in Maplewood.

The next morning we rose early to hit the Tower Grove Farmers Market. Since we’d moved to St. Louis in 2010, it has become our favorite resource for organic produce but also features stands such as Companion Bakery and the incredible salumeria, Salume Beddu. Having stocked up on fresh pasta, peaches, and cheese, we decided to try the Southwest Diner in Maplewood. We instantly fell in love with the warm atmosphere and cozy décor of the restaurant, both of which were instantly superseded by the food, which was an incredible and inventive take on Southwestern cuisine. (It also bears noting that the restaurant, appropriately enough, is located on Southwest Avenue.)

After finishing one the best slices of key lime pie that either of us had ever had, we proceeded to Bob’s Seafood Market on Olive to get lobsters to grill for dinner. Once we’d secured two crustaceans to that effect, we dropped them at home and headed to see more live animals – this time at the St. Louis Zoo. St. Louis happily boasts one of the best zoos in the country and … it’s free!

Having completed the trip to the zoo, I dropped Lara off at home and headed over to the North Side Workshop, a non-profit art space dedicated to addressing cultural and community issues in North Saint Louis. It was founded by friends Juan William Chavez and Kiersten Torrez, and their programming “focuses on incorporating socially engaged art and education with the goal of fostering social progress in North Saint Louis communities.” I came upon Juan watering the Workshop’s garden, where they teach local children about gardening, and asked him how the bees in the hives they maintain on-site were doing. North Side is an incredible asset to the city of St. Louis and an excellent example of a new development in contemporary art practice – the engagement of a community as a way of making art.

I headed over to White Flag Projects, an alternative space for contemporary art on Manchester Avenue, to see a more “traditional” presentation of art in the group show “Ghosts Before Breakfast” curated by the founder of White Flag, Matthew Strauss. Established in 2006, White Flag, like North Side, is one of the most welcome cultural endeavors in the city, bringing adventurous new art to St. Louis with strikingly singularity and focus.

Sunday was a bit more low key and at home but we made an exception to try a “new place” for us which is something of a St. Louis phenomenon by now: the soul-food restaurant, Sweetie Pies in the Grove. Now the subject of a reality television show on Oprah Winfrey’s television network, Sweetie Pies treated us to some of the most amazing comfort food imaginable (including the finest examples of fried chicken, black-eyed peas, meat loaf, and pecan pie this or any side of the Mississippi.

Much of the weekend encapsulated what to me are three of the “keys” to the city of St. Louis:

1.) Explore: with an open mind: So many of the best places we’ve found here in St. Louis were discoveries rather than suggestions or recommendations. Simply by taking a chance on a place that looks intriguing—Southwest Diner, for example, is a restaurant we’d passed many times and developed a healthy curiosity about—one can quickly find places that may become favorites forever.

2.) Do the research: We found Bob’s Seafood as a result of following up on things we’d read in the local food magazines Feast and Sauce. (Salume Beddu was a similar discovery – as was the fantastic Cajun restaurant Riverbend in Soulard, which we found on the blog “St. Louie Foodie.”) Getting to know your city by keeping up with pays dividends …

3.) Have high expectations: The reputation of my own institution, the Contemporary Art Museum, was the key reason I moved to St. Louis, yet I’ve been overwhelmingly impressed by the quantity and quality of the other art museums and organizations here in the city. From the aforementioned North Side Workshop and White Flag Projects, to the Saint Louis Art Museum, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, Laumeier Sculpture Park, Isolation Room, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the Luminary, and others, the vitality and excellence of the art institutions here is indicative of the standards set across the board—from the Missouri Botanical Garden to the St. Louis Symphony every aspect and facet of city life in St. Louis!

Dominic Molon, Chief Curator

Having driven the Silverado 2500 from St. Louis to Columbia the night before, I drove with my wife Lara to Sedalia, Missouri, home of the Missouri State Fair where I had been invited to jury the fine arts competition for 2012. I’d never been to a State Fair and so the opportunity to see one up close and more or less behind the scenes piqued my curiosity to a considerable degree. We made our way down I-70, turning off at Highway 65 to get to Sedalia. Although I’d constructed a pretty serious “trucking” mix for the journey, we’d elected to give the satellite radio some time. Both of us having grown up in the 1980s, we were naturally drawn to the “new wave oldies” station, providing the rather hilarious cultural dissonance of driving into the Fairgrounds amidst tractors and trailers, corn-dog stands, and other rustic Americana with British goth-industrial band Sisters of Mercy’s “This Corrosion” blaring on the speakers. After finding the Fine Arts building I set to work jurying the show. The work, refreshingly, had been created by artists from everywhere in Missouri BUT St. Louis and featured everything from elegant photographs of billboards along I-70 shot at nighttime to ingeniously figurative sculptures crafted from fabric and found materials.

Afterwards, I joined Lara and her folks in checking out other buildings—Agriculture being especially interesting for its enormous watermelons, pumpkins, and rows of cured hams—and then off for a decadent fried catfish lunch at Sedalia’s legendary LeMaire’s Cajun Catfish. From there we visited the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art on the campus of Sedalia’s State Fair Community College. Housed in a comfortable and attractive space, it featured prints by legendary contemporary artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, as well as an excellent example of the still-somewhat overlooked abstract American painter, Gene Davis.

We checked into Sedalia’s historic Hotel Bothwell (said to be haunted!) and later returned to the fairgrounds to check out the “buttercow”—this year, a bovine version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa appropriately re-titled the “Mooona Lisa”—as well as the chicken house prior to attending the reception for the art competition opening. We capped the evening off with a trip to Kehde’s Bar-B-Q where we dined in an old rail car. Fun!

After a ghost-free night we rallied early for breakfast at the Sunrise Café and blazed a trail back to St. Louis where we checked out a local Italian favorite, Trattoria Marcella (3600 Watson Road).

More to come …

Dominic Molon, Chief Curator

My week as a participant in Chevy’s “Keys to Your City” program began with the delivery of a Silver 2012 Chevy Silverado 2500 to my doorstep in the Fox Park neighborhood of St. Louis. Perhaps the most immediately striking thing was the sheer SIZE of the vehicle. While I grew up around my dad’s various pick-up trucks, they tended to be more modestly scaled to accommodate the bricklaying side jobs he’d do on the weekends. Having access to a vehicle that could carry the hatchback that my wife, Lara, and I use as our primary car is quite another matter! Regardless, a change of pace to end the summer is a fun prospect and with Chevrolet having recently agreed to sponsor my favorite sports team-British soccer powerhouse, Manchester United-it seemed totally appropriate! First order of business is to take the Silverado to Columbia, Missouri, home of my in-laws and the SEC-glory-bound Mizzou Tigers, for the evening with my wife before we all head to Sedalia where I will jury the art exhibition for the 2012 Missouri State Fair. Columbia, incidentally, is a fantastic side-trip from St. Louis-only two hours away and one of the most fun college-towns in the U.S. While there, head to Booches for one of the best burgers ever (have 3 – they’re small!), then to Tropical Liqueurs (aka “Trops”) for one of their powerfully sweet cocktail concoctions.

For the maiden voyage of the Silverado, I put together a playlist that reflected the sublime power of the machine or tapped into the fascination with “big rigs” that many a child of the 1970s had when growing up:

1. John Williams, “The Imperial March (from ‘Star Wars, Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back”
2. Big Black, “The Power of Independent Trucking”
3. Judas Priest, “You Got Another Thing Comin’”
4. Duke Ellington, “Truckin’”
5. Red Sovine, “Giddy Up Go”
6. Motorhead,”Ace of Spades”
7. Dwight Yoakam, “Truckin’”
8. AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”
9. Roger Miller, “King of the Road”
10. Jon Wayne, “Truckin’”
11. Pavement, “Heaven is a Truck”
12. Jerry Reed, “Eastbound and Down”
13. C.W. McCall, “Convoy”
14. Led Zeppelin, “Moby Dick”
15. T. Rex, “Truck on (Tyke)”
16. Georg Solti, Vienna Philharmonic, Wagner, Die Walkure, “Vorspiel: Hojotoho Heiaha (The Ride of the Valkyries)”

More to come …

Dominic Molon, Chief Curator

The 10th iteration of Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB for short throughout)—which has now become a fixture on the art world’s calendar and another source of civic pride for a city better known for basketball teams and beaches—showed the fair settling into its status as the premier commercial exposition for contemporary art in the United States. Since its first appearance in 2002, ABMB has inspired the development of satellite fairs—among the most prominent being the NADA (New Art Dealers Association) fair. It has also been aided by various entities and individuals in Miami “stepping up their game” with the opening or expansion of public spaces devoted to private collections or curated exhibitions—the de la Cruz Collection, World Class Boxing, the Cisneros Foundation, and the Rubell Family Collection, among others—as well as museums and alternative spaces such as Locust Projects or the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, putting on more ambitious shows. Perhaps it was just me but despite the seemingly healthy business being done, one couldn’t help but feel that things were somewhat more subdued, with the fairs moving into their “mature” phase and, celebrity spottings of P. Diddy, Val Kilmer, A-Rod, and Owen Wilson aside, the context of a still uncertain economy made the carnival a little less … carnivalesque.

A shortlist of my picks that clicked:
• Los Angeles-based artist Ruben Ochoa’s dynamic, site-specific project at Locust Projects featured excised sections of the gallery floor propped up on precariously pitched steel beams.

• Larry Johnson’s presentation at Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, was one of numerous so-called “Art Kabinett” presentations at ABMB that featured in-depth mini-exhibitions of a gallery’s artist. I’ve admired his deadpan text-and-image-based photographic work since first seeing it in the 1989 exhibition The Photography of Invention and am glad to see him finally getting further exposure.

• Two Art Kabinetts for John Miller at Praz-Delavallade and Meyer Riegger (both at ABMB) were welcome presentations of another artist who’s quietly established a strong career for iconoclastic works that touch on the quirkiness, disposability, and abjection of American culture.

• Alan Reid and Michael Bauer both were represented with strong paintings at Lisa Cooley Gallery (NADA)

• The third floor at the de la Cruz Collection featuring phenomenal works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jim Hodges, and Gabriel Orozco. A welcome reminder of the Collection’s earlier days and a good counterpoint to the visual “maximalism” of the first two floors.

• Works by Jack Whitten and Hassan Sharif and an Art Kabinett for Joan Semmel at Alexander Gray Gallery, (at ABMB), a space that specializes in celebrating figures working somewhat outside of the art historical spotlight.

• I found the suspended sculpture by Alan Shields at Greenberg van Doren’s booth in ABMB very hard to resist.

• Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in a mesh-clad building but I was very drawn to Valerie Snobeck’s works incorporating plastic-scaffolding mesh at Essex Gallery (NADA).

• Mary Reid Kelley’s black-and-white video at Pilar Corrias (ABMB) made an indelible impression with its meditation on the plight of prostitutes during the First World War. The use of poetically dense dialogue and elaborate costuming and make-up—most unsettlingly Kermit-the-Frog-style eye coverings—makes the work that much more strangely affecting.

• Philip Hanson’s paintings at Corbett vs Dempsey were tucked away on a side wall but that positioning did little to diminish their compelling combination of stylized text and inspired handling of color and composition.

• Brendan Fowler’s maze of paintings and broken photographic wall structures at Untitled (ABMB) demonstrate a great sense of progression and ambition in this L.A. artist’s practice.

• Finally, something about Carissa Rodriguez’s ultra-subtle object-based sculptures at Karma International (ABMB) struck a chord with me …

Dominic Molon:

We’ve gone days on end without rain in St. Louis this summer…so naturally a downpour would kick off our Bus Tour of various artist studios, galleries, and printing presses along Cherokee Street as part of our 6th Annual City-Wide Open Studios weekend. A little bit of rain didn’t keep us from our mission of exploring the fascinatingly diverse range of artists’ work, exhibitions, and generally creative-goings on in this hotbed of artistic activity in the city. Among the highlights were a demonstration of printing techniques at Firecracker Press; an exploration of the forest that has overrun the former site of the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Projects courtesy of Juan William Chavez’ multimedia installation at Los Caminos; an intriguing chat with artist Stan Chisholm at the multi-arts complex 2720 Cherokee (where some tour members elected to join in with the practicing hula-hoopers on the first floor); and a more “traditional” studio visit with artist Kurt Christian. We concluded the day at former police station-turned-art venue, Mad Art, who graciously hosted a presentation of artists’ works for whom an “open-studio” is not necessarily an option. While overcast skies (and an occasional shower) provided the backdrop, the day was nonetheless lightened by an engaging visit with a fascinating cross-section of St. Louis’ contemporary art community.

Paul Ha:

For our 6th Annual City Wide Open Studios, we decided to focus our attention on the fact that St. Louis – due to relatively inexpensive rent in some areas – has really grown into a city with many alternative art spaces. Alternative to what you ask? Well, the usual clean four white wall spaces you see in museums and commercial galleries. One great addition to the art going experience is everything happening on Cherokee Street. This pedestrian friendly strip from S. Jefferson to S. Compton is bustling with newly opened and inexpensive Mexican restaurants (try El Torito), other places to eat (try Black Bear Bakery), and a fantastic indie record store (A Pop Records). In addition to great places to eat, do some shopping (Mexican grocery stores), and purchase some new cowboy boots (!!), there are also great selections of alternative art spaces, print presses, and artist studios on these blocks (as mentioned in Dominic’s posting). The next time you want something a little different, go to Cherokee Street, park your car, and get out to see some independent art and buy some independent music.

Just as legendary art-rock band Talking Heads’ third album was titled “Fear of Music,” the 54th iteration of the Venice Biennale could have been titled “Fear of Painting” – or at least “Fear of Painting in the more traditional sense.” While there were various flourishes of the “painterly” articulated in sculpture, film, video, or photography, there was barely a pigment stained or encrusted canvas to be found in either the national pavilions of this venerable moment-defining contemporary art event, or in the major group exhibition “Illuminazioni” (“Illuminations”), curated by Swiss curator and art publication editor Bice Curiger. It was telling that the most prominently placed paintings in Curiger’s show were works by the 16th Century Venetian master, Tintoretto, and that they seemed to be there less for their own sake than as visual, conceptual, and, perhaps even political strategy (an anachronistic shout out for a local hero?) It prompts one to wonder whether painting is thought to lack the spectacular punch of a large scale sculptural presentation or video installation or the ability to possess the documentary currency of photography. It can’t be a temporal issue as a presentation of paintings would make fewer demands on one’s time than the time-based media of film or video or many of the more involved sculptural installations that commanded over two-hour long waiting lines. The absence of painting (or drawing for that matter) serves variously as a commentary on expectations of the Biennale (and Biennial-type exhibitions in general), on the current status of curatorial tastes and practice, or as an indication of what the collective logic of the Biennale curator and national pavilion commissioners and curators just happened to be this year.

Some of the highlights in the humble opinion of your reporter:

National Pavilions (Giardini): Mike Nelson‘s tour-de-force installation in the British Pavilion took upwards of two hours of waiting at some points but was ultimately very much worth the wait. Once inside, one was transported via Nelson’s astonishing and singular ability to transform a space and engage a fascinating narrative in the process. Front Room alumnus Hany Armanious‘ exhibition in the Australian Pavilion was expertly-curated by the Hammer Museum’s Anne Ellegood and focused on objects cast in polyurethane resin to suggest curiously assembled artifacts of the present-day that one might find in the future. Yael Bartana’s project for the Polish Pavilion comprised three films: Mary Koszmary (2007), Mur I wieża (2009) and Zamach (2011) all revolving around the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, a political group that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers. The politically-charged nature of the films was enhanced by their striking cinematography and Bartana’s clever development of their narratives by placing his protagonists in unexpected theatrical situations. And presentation of Andrei Monastryski and Collective Actions titled “Empty Zones” was curated for the Russian Pavilion by critic and theoretician Boris Groys both celebrated these artists’ engagement of the audience in the production of meaning while occupying the space in a visually and materially dynamic and affecting manner.

Two hour wait for Mike Nelson’s tour-de-force installation in the British Pavilion

Hany Armanious’ exhibition inthe Australian Pavilion

Illuminations (Italian Pavilion): It was refreshing to see Llyn Foulkes’ wonderfully strange paintings which provided a much needed sense of inspired irreverence to the proceedings. Amalia Pica’s performance and performative installation and Gabriel Kuri’s always fascinating and unexpected reworkings of everyday objects were welcome additions to and in interventions within the flow of the exhibition as well.

View from the Italian Pavilion

Illuminations (Arsenale): Emily Wardill’s film Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck (2007) which translates stained glass window panels from Gothic churches into theatrical scenarios will be presented at CAM this Fall. Carol Bove, Rebecca Warren, and Andro Wekua offered similar yet individually flawless and manicured sculptural presentations that possessed exacting consideration and grace in their exploration of structure, material, and objecthood. A three-channel video projection by Nick Relph that focused on the art of Ellsworth Kelly ingeniously split the viewer’s perception into an appreciation of green, red, and blue – colors that become distinctive and iconic in Kelly’s reductivist paintings. Shannon Ebner‘s use of photography and sculpture to explore the intricacies and dynamic fluidity of language was brilliantly articulated in the 28-part work The electric comma ( A language of exposures) (2011). Recent CAM exhibiting artist Elad Lassry presented a series of his signature composed photographic images as well as a gorgeous film featuring dancers performing in richly colored outfits and joined periodically in their dance by a ghostly figure. One of the last works one encountered as part of the Arsenale presentation was an incredible animated video by Frances Stark features Nintendo Wii/Mii-like male and female figures enacting a computer-voiced soundtrack based on chatroom dialogue. An utterly elegant use of fairly current technology to create a work that is engrossing, hilarious, and unsettling all at once.

Off-Site Pavilions: Anton Ginzburg‘s multidimensional installation at the Palazzo Bollani (organized by Houston’s Blaffer Gallery and ArtPace in San Antonio) was a breath of fresh air with its curious, Noguchi-inspired forms, subtle alterations of the existing architecture of the space, and a beautifully shot video projection that shifts from a natural history archive to a surveyor who walks through a snowy tundra and is consumed by red smoke. The project is the result of the New York-based Russian-born artist’s three-part journey, commencing in the American North West (Astoria, Oregon), continuing to St. Petersburg, and finishing in the White Sea, the site of the Soviet Gulag prison camps. Cyprus’ national pavilion featured a project titled “Temporal Taxonomy” and featured work by artists Marianna Cristofides and Elizabeth Hoak-Doering in photography and kinetic sculpture that suggested aspects of Cypriot history and culture. Representing Scotland, Karla Black created an extraordinary and often playful series of rooms through a dynamic and ridiculously inventive use of plaster, dirt, mud, paint, Vaseline, eye shadow, lipstick, cellophane, polyethylene, creams, oils, and gels, to name a few expected and unexpected materials. From a entrance room that possessed an almost Willy Wonka-esque confectionary quality to a series of spaces connected by a path cleared from a layer of dirt that lined the floors and supported richly colored and fragrant sculptures, Black memorably used her presentation to activate her galleries by effectively painting in and with space.