Under the swashbuckling banner “Free Territory,” the latest edition of the granddaddy of Southern Hemisphere biennials features the work of 142 artists from sixty countries in its massive Niemeyer-designed space. German-born Alfons Hug, who also curated the Bienal’s timid 2002 installment, now proposes the theme of the “no-man’s-land,” described as a “power-free zone,” a land of “emptiness, of silence and respite, where the frenzy that surrounds us” is brought to a momentary standstill. Biennial regulars Julie Mehretu, Jorge Pardo, Santiago Sierra, and Neo Rauch operating in a “power-free” zone? For those preferring their artistic lands manned, the exhibition also contains the old standby, “National Representations.”

— Nico Israel