THE NINTH INTERNATIONAL ISTANBUL BIENNIAL was always going to be a tough act to follow. That edition, organized by Vasif Kortun and Charles Esche in 2005, was exemplary: Clustered in the Beyoglu area, it engendered a productive dialogue with the city, using found buildings (including a tobacco warehouse, former offices, and an apartment block), all within walking distance of one another, encouraging a seamless interaction between the urban milieu and the works of art being exhibited. It showcased a generation of emerging artists, many of whom had produced their projects in the Balkan region,

ROBERT BECK’S RECENT EXHIBITION, “dust”—organized by the Wexner’s Bill Horrigan—seemingly affirmed two contradictory positions: On the one hand, each piece in the show requires the discipline of psychology as the methodological basis of its interpretation. On the other hand, each work refuses any coherent psychological reading whatsoever. In this way, Beck’s work avoids clichéd interpretations while at the same time handling the very substance of creative labor.

Consider a group of small, framed, meticulously crafted works on paper. They seem to be examples of drawings produced in art