If it is your misfortune -- as it was for my family and I one summer -- to drive in an small unairconditioned vehicle from the northern-most part of the eastern seaboard to the southern-most part, you will undoubtedly begin to notice, somewhere on I-95 between Delaware and Virginia, the early warning billboards that urge you not to miss the turn (“only 150 Miles away!”) for an ill-defined but mysteriously enticing place called South of the Border (S.O.B.).

Though they are planted sparingly at first, as you near North Carolina (S.O.B is just S.O NC’s B), the billboards come in such convincing succession that one begins to worry that if the drivers do not ultimately stop, you will certainly miss a phenomenon which, according to Pedro (mascot and feature of their festive MexiCali-style signs), has been uniformly acknowledged as the “Talk of the Town” and an opportunity of a lifetime: “You Never Sausage a Place!”

Of course, the joke of this true story is that S.O.B. is nothing more than a gift-shop for itself, and that after you’ve driven through the big red arches (actually the legs of a giant “Pedro”), and used the S.O.B. restrooms, your conscience will not rest until you buy an S.O.B. bumper-sticker, key-chain, and t-shirt, to prove you were there and maybe entice another sucker to go.

To get back to the Venice Biennale, which I have been covering for BlackBook: if one were to replace bumper stickers with totebags, it is the “been there” economy of S.O.B’s, which, in my last days here, has struck me as the the rule of law that governs the event. In the introductory pages of the catalogue of this year’s exhibition, Paolo Baratta, president of the Biennale organization, used an awkward simile to describe the Biennale as a regenerative force: “ a wind machine” that “shakes the forest and unveils hidden truths." But in the same way, the Biennale is also about producing a lot of air. Here, as a line forms in front of X pavilion, and as visitors think that X pavilion is line-worthy, and then as X pavilion suddenly has a waiting time of 2 hours, one can watch a clinical application of the law of both money and publicity (more of it equals more of it). As a result, the most talked about pieces become the most talked about pieces, accruing a sort of circulatory value.

While I have already covered some noteworthy events more thoroughly, here are some other works from the Biennale that are sure to get caught in the spin-cycle:

“Untitled” (2001) by Urs Fischer 1:1 candle-wax models of an erudite gallery-goer, a sculpture called The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giovanni Bologna, and a generic desk chair (all three of them melting) attracted alot of photographs. The large Bologna copy, which had, apparently, already lost a hand, was cordoned off, adding an element of risk to the slow-burn spectacle. Nothing that hasn’t been done in the safe environ of an art museum before, but drawing a crowd nonetheless.

“Ascension” (2003-2011) by Anish Kapoor Palladio designed San Giorgio Maggiore on an island in 1565. Today, at the intersection of the transcept and the nave, Kapoor has created a circular base from which a column of smoke rises. If you were alone and in this church, it might appear, perhaps as Kapoor intended it to be, like a miracle. But surrounded by hundreds of others taking pictures, it feels more like a magician’s act. The press release says, “Never before has an artist gone so far in rendering tangible what is generally interpreted as being empty.”

Christian Marclay “The Clock” 2010 Marclay won the Golden Lion this year for his 24 hour film which samples "thousands of film excerpts indicating the passage of time”.

Gelatin Pavilion “Some Like it Hot” (2011) Behind the Italian Pavilion (which was unanimously loathed). the Austrian art collective Gelatin labored to reduce large piles of wood and glass in a furnace, while naked men humped logs and Japanther played. A little patch of Bushwick behind the Arsenale!

Cai Shisong, “Cloud-Tea” (2011) Part of the China Pavilion, this was an expensive-looking sculpture that literally produced big white fluffy clouds.

Everyone had a go at Bruno Jakob’s "Invisible Paintings" (2011), a series of pigmentless watercolors which appeared multiple times throughout the ILLUMInations show. But isn’t Jakob, whose same paintings are sold by heavyweight dealer David Zwirner, having the last laugh here?

In closing, lest we dash our expectations after turning off the exit, perhaps it is best to consider the Biennale as we consider S.O.B.: a steroidal rest-stop for tourists who need to “have been there.” Those artists who are willing to acknowlege this with a sense of humour, like Dora García of Spain, whose work “The Inadequate” addresses her doubts about being chosen, or Anetta Mona Chiøa & Lucia Tkácová, representing Romania, who have painted a mural on their pavilion’s facade that lists 80% of the reasons why the two artists should be in the Biennale, and 20% why they should not. Their fifteenth reason not to be in the Biennale?: “To Keep off Who’s Hot and Who’s Not”.

Sorry guys.

Photos by Michael Shick

Urs Fischer photo courtesy of DesignBoom.