Biennales ordinarily offer a world picture in which local content looms large. Sydney’s is no different; it serves to update the country’s isolated art public, and to present local work in a larger context. As a national bicentennial event, this year’s event offered exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne, became the Australian Biennale, and boasted both a historical dimension and a regionalist perspective.

The show was titled “From the Southern Cross, a View of World Art 1940–1988,” and it included a wider range of works than previous Sydney Biennales. Without doubt, the show was stronger for its