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2 Stephanie Moisdon, "L'Ecole de Stephanie" ("La Force de I'Art" Grand Palais, Paris) A French cross between the Whitney Biennial and the Tate Triennial (with a heavy dose of art-fair aesthetic), "La Force de I'Art" was without doubt the most unnecessary large-scale exhibition I saw last year. Of the show's many curators, Moisdon was one of the few who managed to salvage some self-respect, by intelligently presenting no art at all but instead establishing The School of Stephanie, an active pedagogical environment with a daily talk program, as a pendant to the exhibition itself.

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3 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Sao Paulo Bienal, Brazil) So much of the legendary French artist Gonzalez-Foerster's work in Europe has replicated aspects of the architecture, attitudes, and life of Brazil, her adopted home, but in Sao Paulo she intervened directly upon the city's iconic Oscar Niemeyer building by proliferating the large white columns that characterize its structure. In this masterful work, titled Double Terrain de Jeu (Pavillon-Marquise) (Double Playground [Pavilion-Marquise]), the artist's "fake" additions and the originals become confused in a forest of signs.

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4 Christopher Williams (Whitney Biennial, New York) Providing a moment of quiet in the maelstrom of the Whitney Biennial, Williams somehow managed to get away with installing just five carefully choreographed photographs in a gallery devoted exclusively to his work. The clarity of the artist's intention was brought into sharp focus by the neighboring installation, in which an identical space contained no fewer than twenty-two images by Robert Gober placed cheek to cheek.

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5 Tino Sehgal (Tate Triennial, London) In an otherwise fairly desiccated show of British art, Sehgal's This Is Propaganda offered an unexpected and elegantly intelligent pleasure. The work, consisting of the title sung by a female gallery attendant, was separate from the main exhibition in one of Tate Britain's collection galleries occupied by three female, nude Victorian sculptures. Sehgal's addition of a fourth figure reflected astutely on issues ranging from the aesthetics of nineteenth-century art, the didacticism of museum display, and the role of the triennial itself. And, of course, the piece acted out self-promotion for its own presence.

6 Pawel Althamer (Berlin Biennial) The Berlin Biennial was initially hard to fault: easily accessible and smartly installed, few achingly bad works, a cheeky poke at the art establishment in the run-up to the show, and an apparently sincere pathos expressed by its theme, "Of Mice and Men." But the concept and locations of the show drew so heavily on Berlin's past that they risked turning Auguststrasse into the Hollywood sign of the Holocaust and gave one the uncanny sense of being in a vast film set. Few artworks peeked behind this facade to contemplate the very real political problems the city currently faces. Althamer's Fairy Tale, however, was an exception. By donating his exhibition fee to a Turkish immigrant facing deportation at age eighteen (despite having lived in Berlin since he was one), Althamer attempted to bring about a drastic change in fortune for one occupant of the city.