If you have not read Mary Thomas's interview of Life on Mars curator Douglas Fogle in the April 27 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it is well worth checking out. Where Fogle finds the time to sleep these days, let alone talk to the press, is beyond me.

Fogle says alot in the interview about the nature of an exhibition like this, and about how he hopes visitors will approach it, that bears repeating.

First, that the show is not meant to summarize or illustrate the state of contemporary art in the world today nor to proclaim what is new and sensational; rather, it is a highly personal vision (Fogle's) shaped by a particular moment in time and a particular place (Pittsburgh and the museum itself).

Second, that a primary aspiration of the show is to enable connections between the public and the artists, to allow the art itself to become a node of communication, thought, and insight.

Third, that while many of us are not facile with the grammar of contemporary art and may feel intimidated or uncomfortable at a show if this kind, if we slow down and take our time, and approach the work with an open mind, and come more than once, we can establish connections with the work that are not apparent at first glance.

Finally I was reminded how ephemeral and evanescent some of the work in the show is, best illustrated by two works that depend upon the rising and setting of the sun to be experienced: Sunset Song, by Susan Phillipsz, is nothing more than the sound of her voice; powered by solar energy, it fades away as the sun sets; and Migration: 365 Hotel Rooms, Doug Aitkens's video projections onto the museum facade, which can only be seen at night. Very often the popular, dismissive view of contemporary art is that it is highly cerebral and disconnected from everyday life, but as these two works exemplify, it can in fact invite us to become newly aware of the most basic rhythms and processes of nature, time, Earth, and Sun. Though right in front of us all the time, these fundamental aspects of our experience are usually invisible to us, drowned out by the more "important" details of our daily lives.