Walker executive director Olga Viso shares snapshots and notes from her late July 2012 trip to European art exhibitions and venues. In addition to dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel–which she reviewed this week–she visited Antwerp, Genk, and Ghent. Here are some of the works that stood out.



Kendall Geers’ flaming tire sculpture outside the entrance of Manifesta, the roaming European Biennial which took place this year in Genk, Belgium.



Leo Copers‘ ironic eulogy to museums struggling to assert their relevance and survive financially in TRACK, sited in a public park across the street from SMAK. (And, no, the Walker does not have a tombstone in this installation!)



At TRACK, Benjamin Verdonck‘s sculptural treehouse mimics traditional housing from the surrounding Ghent neighborhood.

Kris Martin‘s site-specific sculpture at the entrance to Sint-Baafs Cathedral in Jan Hoet’s exhibition Sint Jan, which placed contemporary art projects throughout one of Ghent’s main churches.



Claire Fontaine’s neon sign installation at Manifesta appropriating street signage once visible outside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that called for “energy self-sufficiency.”



Danh Vo‘s cut-up copper fragments of a replica Statue of Liberty in TRACK, Ghent.



Thomas Schütte‘s collaboration with Belgian architect Paul Robberecht to create a sculpture-filled architecture pavilion at the Middelheim Open Air Museum in Antwerp, Belgium.



aNNo Architecten‘s design for the museum shop at the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp using recycled museum posters and publications.



Ni Haifeng‘s Para-Production installation using several tons of discarded fabric remnants.



Jimmie Durham’s career retrospective at MuHKA, Antwerp.



Ai Weiwei’s newly commissioned walking bridge at the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp. (Photo: Joris-Casaer)



Mikhail Karikis and Uriel Orlow’s video installation in Manifesta featuring a choir of retired coal miners performing sounds inspired by their former work.



Richard Long’s massive floor sculpture made of coal that was the centerpiece of one of the floors at Manifesta, held in the site of an abandoned former coal factory.



Carlos Amorales’s streams of charcoal drawings in Manifesta exploring the exhibition’s themes of production and capitalist consumption.



Mark Manders‘ multi-room installation in the city-wide sculpture festival TRACK, organized by the contemporary museum SMAK Ghent, Belgium.