The first of artcritical’s dispatches from Europe this summer

To Walker and Bradford alike, density of visual information is an aesthetic choice that mirrors the mutliple layers of reality and complexity retrieved from subject matter.

Life on Mars shares a number of artists with Unmonumental, including Mark Bradford, Cao Fei, Thomas Hirschhorn, Matthew Monahan, Manfred Pernice, and Susan Philipsz. For a show of only 39 artists, that makes nearly a sixth. This is perhaps unsurprising considering the New Museum’s Eungie Joo served on the advisory committee for the 2008 International, but is rather suspect for a show that purports to be global in its representation. Suspect as well is that all but seven of the artists are from the US or Europe and only twelve are women.