Smaller, and with a many more stands focused on 20th century art, the dazzling 25th Paris Biennale on view at the Grand Palais through Sept. 22, has taken a giant leap into a new aesthetic in 2010.

The New York Times' Souren Melikian calls this year's show "a watershed in the history of Western culture."

Once a bastion of French traditionalism, the show now is marked by an increased modernity and bold style. Melikain writes, "The collective effort to make an instant impact through expressiveness and size is perceptible even in unlikely areas."

While the number of exhibitors is down to 87 from 111 in 2006, a profusion of them, including many newcomers such as Richard Nagy, Marlborough Gallery and L&M Arts, are showing arresting, large-scale works by the likes of Takashi Murakami, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Egon Schiele, Mark Rothko, Max Ernst, and Joan Miro.

Monumental size was a common thread of the many Chinese art pieces offered. Christian Deydier showcased a giant and magnificent Tang Dynasty horse (68 cm. high), priced at $10 million, as well as 12 terracotta Zodiac figures from the Tang dynasty. Gisèle Croës displayed enormous bronzes from ancient China while James Lally greeted visitors with a strikingly large bronze door ring in the form of a mythical beast mask called taotie, priced about €250,000, or $327,000, which sold immediately, reported the New York Times.

Expressive Boulle and Baroque decorative arts dominated. Of the more unusual displays, Kraemer & Cie created a version of the Oval Office decorated in ornate French 18th-century style.

Newcomer Jason Jacques spent more than $500,000 on his booth's recreation of the Georges Hoentschel pavilion at the 1900 Universal Exposition, according to the Financial Times. Hoentschel was an architect, interior decorator, art collector, and ceramicst whose designs for the 1900 fair were in full-blown Art Nouveau style, then at the height of its popularity in France. Highlights on Jacques’ stand included Red Crab, a vase, circa 1893, by Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat and Cosmic Firestorm, a vase, circa 1895, by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer for Clement Massier.

Among the show's sales was a set of nine French ecclesiastical garments, embroidered in gold thread, from a convent. They fetched €780,000 in the stand of Bernard de Leye with the proceeds going to a group of nuns, reports the Economist.