sculptures by artists as: Bruce Nauman, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Chris Burden, Jessica Stockholder, Hanne Darboven, and Ute Schroder were viewed in relation to video installations by: Gary Hill, Mariko Mori, Zhang Peill, Paul McCarthy, and Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. There were "physical/ ephemeral" pieces by younger artists, such as Jason Rhoades and Richard Jackson, and the famous large-scale black rats by Katharina Fritsch, which were shown earlier at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York. Szeemann included a historical section with bronze cast self-portraits of the eighteenth-century artist Frances Xavier Messerschmidt, an ancestral figure to contemporary performance art. Szeemann mounted the bronze heads in a circular arrangement, thereby asserting their relationship to closely placed works by the Austrian Actionists of the 1960s. Surrounding the Messerschmidts were photographs, drawings, and relics by artists as Rudolph Schwarzkogler, Hermann Nitsch, Otto Muhl, Gunther Brus, and Arnulf Rainer. Another portion of the "historical" section was an entry in the exhibition catalog by the French art historian and curator Jean Clair. An apparent theme intended by Szeemann in L'Autre was to position artists at the end of modernism within the context of a "self-historifying mythos". The diversity of works chosen for the Fourth Biennial reflected the constant edge of what was modernism, also what is perceived at its boundaries. Visual Arts Director of 1999/2001 Venice Biennale At the time of Szeemann's appointment the Venice Biennale was no longer a state-run enterprise but has become a foundation. The representation of 15 has been reduced to five people; one representing the city, another the region, another the province, another the National Government, and lastly an unaffiliated third party. Paolo Baratta named directors for the different sections of film, architecture, theater, music, dance, and also visual arts, Szeemann's area of appointment. Szeemann was appointed the Visual Arts Director, succeeding his predecessor Jean Clair, with only five months to prepare for the 1999 Venice Biennale but with the expectation that he would also direct the following show in 2001. A contingency of this appointment was that he would be able to bring his own people with him as well as have more flexibility with the structure of the Biennale. In addition to the regular crew he uses for installation he brought with him Agnes Kohlmeyer to help with the show and Cecilia Liveriero to work on the catalog. Szeemann was responsible for organizing the