THE BIENNALE DE LYON 2007, as conceived by curators Stéphanie Moisdon and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, was an attempt to write the history of the current decade—“a decade that has not yet been named.” To give an account of a period still in progress is an endeavor either absurdly poetic or absurdly hubristic, and the biennial, as it spilled over three main venues—the Musée d’Art Contemporain, a large former warehouse called La Sucrière, and the Institut d’Art Contemporain—was a little of both.

At the core of this conflicted sense was the biennial’s very premise. Seven months before the