Because of the speed of communication, the easy mobility of art and artists, and the network of relationships that fuel the sector, an examination of contemporary art along national lines is anachronistic. 

The production, distribution and consumption of contemporary art - and the dominant critical discourses attending it - are international in scope. While cultural specificity remains central to the work of many artists, national identity itself is increasingly a footnote.  Luc Tuymans' subdued paintings reflecting upon Belgium's colonial history and the independence of Congo are the exception.  (Incidentally, these Gerhard Richter-inspired works provide evidence that the once-dominant genre of history painting can still pack a considerable punch-although the Cy Twombly confections included in Harald Szeemann's curated show suggested the opposite, despite Twombly's Lion d'or prize.)  But explicit engagement with national themes is as rare as painting itself in the Biennale these days.

Where primarily regional forms are celebrated in the national pavilions - the case of Egypt or Venezuela, for example - there is clearly greater merit in the national model and its invitation to diversity.  The Catch-22 is that 'regional' isn't 'international,' and, for better or worse, there is risk of being marginalized as critically irrelevant in this comparative context.

Artists representing established nations at the biennale are generally shown widely elsewhere, and the globe-trotting curatorial crew that orchestrates such spectacles will probably be bringing similar fare soon to a kunsthalle near you. 

Nations with less depth in the production and promotion of contemporary art clearly have the opportunity to benefit from the visibility.  And - if you could find them - there were less established countries with memorable, competitive showings.  The Republic of Latvia topped my list with a series of poignant videos in the Chiesa di San Lio.  Laila Pakalnina's contribution, Papagena, showed a variety of residents of the Latvian capital Riga listening to Mozart's Die Zauberflöte duet on clunky headphones, the coloratura of the music contrasting vividly with the restrained black and white cinematography.  Another video was a lush, documentary-inspired scene of burial and manual gravediggers at work, paced at the tempo of a dirge.

Works like these - locally inflected, historically resonant, deeply affecting, and largely unknown - are what one hopes to discover in such international exhibitions.  Such works are increasingly few and far between in this context where the well-marketed and widely distributed within the global contemporary art circuit reign.  Equality of national representation hardly guarantees visibility, and sending the already internationally recognized is the predominant curatorial model.  While hundreds waited in each of a variety of Giardini queues, less than a dozen viewers watched the Pakalnina in the commodious chiesa.

The International Exhibition - rather than the national pavilion  - is now viewed as the real stuff of which the Biennale is made.

Although critics were generally right this year in hailing the dynamism of many pavilions in comparison to Szeemann's amorphous 'Plateau of Humanity,' the dominance of the International exhibition recalls another question raised at the Wimbledon School round-table: "Should the over-all curatorial theme or vision of the Biennale extend in future to the national pavilions?"

If one judges by the two serendipitous successes of this year, there is some evidence to support the idea, which might result in a manicured cohesion.  Korea's representative Do-Ho Suh constructed a room-sized glass floor supported by thousands of tiny plastic human figures and flanked by wallpaper of a related individual/collectivist theme-stunningly gorgeous and an amusing, literal embodiment of Szeemann's 'plateau.'  Suh's Korean pavilion work was equally strong and of similar aesthetic logic and refinement.  What Brazilian representative Ernesto Neto's installations have to do with Szeemann's theme, I've no idea, but his fragile web of drooping olfactory stimuli, expanded to fill a room of its own, was a highlight at the Arsenale-particularly as it preceded the familiar heavy load of Beuys' Olive Stones.  (Szeemann must surely be tiring from his Sisyphean effort of hauling this work from one biennale to the next.)

Despite these successes, the curatorial union of the Arsenale and the pavilions as they are programmed today does not seem practicable.  Imagine curating 29 Giardini Pavilions (representing 32 countries) and 21 national spaces located elsewhere (in which some 34 countries currently appear, 14 in the space of the Latin American Institute)-in addition to the current Arsenale sprawl (150 artists this year).  Further, imagine requiring artists from more than sixty countries to make work in relation to a theme as vague as Szeemann's-or any other chosen for them.  Hubristic impresarios would no doubt line up for the chance to orchestrate.

The relationship between the International Exhibition and the pavilions needs attention, as the curated show clearly impacts upon the vitality of the national paradigm.  As the Biennale has now branched into theater and music, too, there is further competition for the national pavilions.