RARE album of the 1996 São Paulo Art Biennial which brought together artists from seventy five countries under the theme of "the dematerialization of art at the end of the millennium". The volume "Universalis", the first of three volumes, documents an exhibition which "reflects and innovates the very practice of displaying art". This exhibition divides the world into seven regions, from where entrusted expert curators selected about six representatives from each one (Curators: Brasil - Agnaldo Farias & Nelson Aguilar; Africa - Jean-Hubert Martin, North America - Paul Schimmel, Latin America - Mari Carmen Ramirez, Asia - Tadayasu Sakai, Western Europe - Achille Bonito Oliva, Nicolo Asta, Eastern Europe - Katalin Néray). The artists represented in this biennial: [Brasil] - Arthur Barrio, Eder Santos, Flavia Ribeiro, Georgia Kyriakakis, Nelson Felix, Roberto Evangelista / [Africa and Oceania] - Cyprien Tokoudagba, Francina Ndimande, Frederic Bruly Bouabre, Gedeon, John Mawandjul, Peter Robinson / [North America] - Elizabeth Peyton, Jennifer Pastor, Jim Hodges, Julie Becker, Kathleen Schimert, Tom Friedman / [Latin America] - Gonzalo Diaz, Jose A. Hernandez-Diez, Luis Camnitzer, Maria Teresa Hincapie, Ricardo Brey / [Asia] - Cai Guo Qiang, Charlie Co, Heri Dono, Soocheon Jheon, Yukinori Yanagi / [Western Europe] - Ben Jakober/Yannick Vu, Braco Dimitrijevic, Enzo Cucchi, Luciano Fabro, Panamarenko, Shirazeh Houshiary, Wim Wenders / [Eastern Europe] - Ilya Kabakov, Marjetica Potrc, Milan Knizak, Ojars Petersons, Peter Forgacs, Zbigniew Libera. Contains numerous color plates. 320x305mm. 368 pages. Hardcover with illustrate dust-jacket. Jacket rubbed. Jacket edges/corners worn. Cover slightly rubbed and curved. Cover corners slightly bumped. Spine edges bumped. [SUMMARY]: This extremely rare album of a major art exhibition is in good condition.