What is so defining about the International exhibitions is that they force us to look at the world around us today, and to interpret how art reflects today's reality. In all too many cases, works and the artists that create them are only contemplated retrospectively. Indeed, many things--science, literature, music, and countless others--we consider only in terms of the past or the future, as what has been done, or where something is headed. Each Carnegie International installment, by capturing not what was or what will be but what is, reminds us as a global community to stop and evaluate, interpret, and engage in the world in which we live.

The last 100 or so years of International exhibitions have, in essence, helped create a rich history of the 20th, and now, 21st centuries. While traditional histories document events, these exhibitions tell the human stories and ideas of the time, all by way of the gamut of emotions that art, unlike anything else, is able to evoke.

There are those who will question the purpose of Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, and the validity and the role of art in today's world. They are plagued with the question, "What will it amount to in the future?" In my mind, who cares? As the saying goes, "There is no time like the present." Now, we just need to look at it.