按照国际惯例和模式，北京双年展从首届开始，每届都设有旗帜鲜明的学术主题：从首届的“创新：当代性与地域性”到第二届的“当代艺术的人文关怀”、第三届的“色彩与奥林匹克”、第四届的“生态与家园”、第五届的“未来与现实”、第六届的“记忆与梦想”、第七届的“丝路与世界文明”、第八届的“多彩世界与共同命运”，历届主题注重现实的针对性与全球的关联性，直面即时发生的重大事件，以历史的、现实的、世界的纬度，体现了当代艺术对人类共同命运的责任担当。

      According to international practices and models, every Beijing Biennale has its own academic theme since the first session. The theme of the first Beijing Biennale was "Originality: Contemporaneity and Locality"; the theme of the second session was "Humanistic Concern of the Contemporary Art"; the theme of the third session was "Colors and Olympics" ; the theme of the fourth session was "Ecology and Home" , the theme of the fifth session was "Future and Reality"; the theme of the sixth session was "Memory and Dream"; the theme of the seventh session was "The Silk Road and World Civilizations" and the theme of the eighth session was "A Colorful World and A Shared Future". All previous themes focused on the pertinence of reality and the relevance of the world, faced forthwith the major events that happened at that time, and embodied the responsibility of contemporary art to the shared future of mankind from the point of history, reality and world.