As a fitting prelude to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, this Biennale's board has conscripted a curatorial A-team—Fumio Nano, Louise Neri, Hetti Perkins, Sir Nicholas Serota, Robert Storr, Harald Szeemann, and Nick Waterlow—to assemble an artistic pantheon of millenial proportions. With just a handful of exceptions, all fifty (mostly living) participants are certified hall-of-famers, who, to quote the press release, “have made a major impact on the thinking and values of our time.” Gerhard Richter, Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Yayoi Kusama, and the like will strut their historical stuff at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and a string of smaller venues. Let the fame begin.

— Jeff Gibson