LONDON—An interesting, eclectic show exploring the experience of travel and tourism through the eyes of 50 major contemporary artists opened here just in time for the weekend. Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye, at the Hayward Gallery, features video, film, large-scale installations, photographs and other artworks.

Universal Experience is both an exploration of the phenomenon of global tourism and an adventure and attraction in itself, according to the gallery, where the show will be on view until December 11.

The earliest works in the exhibition date from the 1960s, when tourism first became a significant part of life. Included in the show is Andy Warhol's Empire — an excerpt of the silent black and white film is showing in the stairwell. Filmed from 8:06 pm to 2:42 am on July 25-26, 1964, Warhol's Empire consists of one stationary shot of the Empire State Building taken from the 44th floor of the Time-Life Building. The film is made of several one-hundred-foot rolls of film, each separated from the next by a flash of light, that shows a city as it settles into night.

Empire will also be shown to passersby, projected onto the façade of the National Theatre, every Friday night of October, beginning at 5 o'clock, as the sun begins to set.

In other footage, there's a cool video of Rome shot from above. Olivo Barbieri's work has been filmed through a special lens, which makes the city look like a miniature-scale model that shifts in and out of focus as the camera pans. Filmed from above, the sound of helicopter wings accompanies the footage shown on a large plasma screen.

There's a huge installation in a dark room filled with plasma screens hanging from the ceiling. Alternating between showing the same picture on each screen and different pictures in each, Doug Aitken's plasma screens sometimes switch images at epileptic speeds.

Among a multitude of photos is a giant image by Thomas Struth, taken in Germany, showing the silhouetted backs of people flocking to look at a piece of artwork from what looks to be the French Revolution.

The famous 'Hollywood' sign also makes an appearance in the exhibition, but in a different environment. Seen from behind, it's been transported to a landscape overlooking a landfill in Palermo, Sicily, in this photo by Maurizio Cattelan.

On the darker side of tourism, Jacob Holdt, in his photo series American Pictures, shows racism and poverty in America. In the early 1970s, the photographer hitchhiked across the United States documenting 'black America,' and has since regularly updated the series, showing "new car models, new dress modes, but same old ghetto problem."

Thomas Hirschhorn's Chalet is a large, provocative installation. Stretching out for several rooms in a row, this installation is wallpapered with media coverage of the looting of Baghdad's archaeological museum, and equates the exploitation of military conquest with tourism and pornography, the museum explains.

Universal Experience is organized in collaboration with the Musuem of Contemporary Art of Chicago, and curated by its Manilow Senior Curator Francesco Bonami.