In 1987 Istanbul broke the ice for the new biennials—in its wake came Kwangju, Johannesburg, Taipei—that may have stolen its thunder. The seventh edition, under the direction of Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator of the Contemporary Art Museum, Kanazawa, comes with a subtitle that’s a mouthful: “Egofugal: Fugue from Ego for the Next Emergence.” She predicts the dawning century will replace those dreary old concepts Man, Money, and Materialism with new, improved substitutes: Collective Consciousness, Collective Intelligence, and Coexistence. But will a fourth M—Modern Art—be replaced by another C: Curatorial Hubris?

— Barry Schwabsky