' To confirm its leadership in the field of Visual Arts, the Biennale di Venezia needed a new impulse with a wide-ranging, authorative broadening of its scope and through the implementation of new, extraordinary developments...In other words, in the new globalisation that involves us all, to reveal what artists of the moment are working upon, their trends, their stresses, their gestures, and to represent (without creating hierarchies) "the other truth": the truth of artists, without a knowledge of which an understanding of our times would be incomplete. In this sense, the International Exhibition of Art is not addressed simply to specialists and art-lovers, but to anyone wishing to enrich his awareness and hence belonging to the present...The 49th Exhibition marks the largest participation of countries in the history of the Biennale (64).' - Paolo Baratta, President of the Biennale di Venezia. Included in this catalogue are essays on each artist as well as artists' bibliograpies.