Is there art on Mars? Barbican show's alien perspective

Mark Brown, arts correspondent

Should the proverbial little green men from Mars land on Earth this year then their timing will be spot-on, as the world's only art exhibition aimed at extraterrestrials will be staged in London for the first, and possibly the last, time. For three months, the Barbican's art gallery will be turned into a Martian space, showing earthly contemporary art and trying to explain it - as if Martians were seeing it for the first time.

"It is a completely new way of conceiving contemporary art and, yes, the exhibition could look very strange," said Francesco Manacorda, described by his gallery as its Martian curator.

There is a serious intent behind the exercise. The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art project is in part inspired by the first chapter of the book Kant After Duchamp by Belgian art historian Thierry de Duve, in which an imaginary anthropologist from another world sets out to make an inventory of "all that is called art by humans". The exhibition hopes that this way of looking at things - in a way similar to when western anthropologists first interpreted non-western cultures - will allow new interpretations of contemporary art.

Among the exhibits will be Bruce Nauman's neon sculpture My Name As Though It Were Written on the Surface of the Moon, in which his name is spelled out bbbbbbrrrrrruuuuuucccccceeeeee.

In the opening gallery, conceived as the Great Hall of Ancestors, there will be totems including Sherrie Levine's homage to Marcel Duchamp - a urinal cast in bronze.

The exhibition runs from March 6 to May 18.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jan/14/art.artnews

The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art exhibition (12 pictures)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/jan/14/exhibition?picture=332062805