Since 1973, the Biennale of Sydney exhibitions have presented the work of more than 1503 artists from over 83 countries. Most of these artists were also brought to Sydney by the Biennale, which often facilitated their travel and coordinated their professional engagements in a national outreach program to art schools and universities across Australia.

From the beginning, the Biennale has acted as a catalyst for cultural development and discussion. It has created unique opportunities for direct contact between artists, writers, and curators from other countries - as well as collectors and gallery directors - with their counterparts in Australia. This outreach program has involved hundreds of educational and cultural institutions and as a result, has invigorated artists, students and educators alike.

Over three decades, the Biennale's regular importation and commission of major works of art have offered rare collecting opportunities to many public institutions across Australia. Works of substantial scale by artists of international renown, and which would otherwise have been out of the reach of local collections, became accessible. The cumulative impact of the Biennale of Sydney on the holdings in public collections probably remains little known today, but is another example of the Biennale's enduring contribution to Australian art and culture.

2010 – THE BEAUTY OF DISTANCE: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age
2008 – Revolutions, Forms That Turn 
2006 – Zones of Contact 
2004 – On Reason and Emotion
2002 – (The World May Be) Fantastic
2000 – Sydney 2000
1998 – Every Day
1996 – Jurassic Technologies Revenant
1992/93 – The Boundary Rider
1990 – The Readymade Boomerang: Certain Relations in 20th Century Art
1988 – From the Southern Cross: A View of World Art c1940 – 1988
1986 – Origins, Originality + Beyond
1984 – Private Symbol: Social Metaphor
1982 – Vision in Disbelief
1979 – European Dialogue
1976 – Recent International Forms in Art
1973 – The Inaugural Biennale of Sydney