"Life on Mars," the 2008 Carnegie International, focuses on the increasingly relevant question of what it means to be human in the world today. Foregoing any universal answers to this question, the artists in the exhibition investigate particular aspects of the human condition, moving along paths that are both introspective and worldly while poetically traversing the dramatic spectrum from tragedy to comedy.

Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery through October 5, 2008, will be the first large-scale survey of artwork by the renowned Canadian artist.

Robert Therrien (born in Chicago in 1947, lives and works in Los Angeles) has made a name for himself primarily for his large-format sculptures and installations but he is also active in the fields of drawing, prints and photography.

The most comprehensive retrospective to date of the work of internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami includes more than ninety works in various media that span the artist's entire career, installed in more than 18,500 square feet of gallery space. The exhibition will be on view through July 13, 2008.

For the first time in Belgium, Wiels presents a retrospective dedicated to Mike Kelley, one of the most significant artists of the last 30 years. The exhibition will be on view through July 27, 2008.

For the first time in Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery will present a major retrospective of work by Zhang Huan, one of the most important and widely recognized Chinese artists working in the United States and China. On view through October 5, 2008, Zhang Huan: Altered States includes 55 of the artist's major works produced over the past 15 years in Beijing, New York and Shanghai, including photographs and sculpture.

Anne Desmet is one of the most original talents in contemporary artist-printmaking. She has a unique imagination and technical expertise, and explores human aspiration through city-building and architecture.

This summer through July 19, 2008, internationally renowned artist Chris Burden will exhibit a new sculpture at Rockefeller Center in New York — WHAT MY DAD GAVE ME, a dramatic, 65-foot-tall skyscraper made entirely of toy construction parts. Standing more than six stories tall at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Channel Gardens, WHAT MY DAD GAVE ME will pay homage to the historic skyscrapers that populate New York and give the city its iconic architectural presence.

A photographic exhibition called ghosts in the machine, comprising 95 anonymous and intriguing images from the 1860s to the 1970s, will open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Eurostar and the National Gallery unveiled the world's first interactive digital art gallery for international travellers, to be enjoyed by millions of people who pass through the high-speed rail gateway between the UK and mainland Europe.

As the highlight of The Hayward’s 40th anniversary season, ten artists from around the world have transformed the entire gallery in PSYCHO BUILDINGS, through 25 August 2008. The Hayward’s huge spaces have been filled with artist-designed architectural environments, which spill onto the three outdoor sculpture terraces, radically altering the interior and exterior of the gallery.

The National Portrait Gallery is delighted to announce the unveiling of its latest commission, a portrait of the Nobel Prize winning scientist, Sir Paul Nurse, by acclaimed British artist Jason Brooks. The painting, a large-scale black and white close-up of the scientist's face, cropped to give a cinematic effect, shows every pore, every follicle, every trace of time worn into the human face.