BERLIN — In the mid-1990s, when the world began to outsource the production of contemporary art to this “poor but sexy” capital, one exhibition in particular underlined Berlin’s emergence as Europe’s artistic hot spot. The Berlin Biennale, whose first edition took place in 1998, brought droves of artists and curators to the city’s dilapidated factories and warehouses, and advocated full throttle for the city’s young artists before Germany’s museums caught on.

Berlin, though, is not what it was in 1998, and neither are biennials. Contemporary art has become one of the city’s key marketing tools for the Easyjet-and-Airbnb generation. And biennials are getting more homogeneous: You can encounter as much Berlin-made art in Venice, Istanbul or Taipei as you will here. Now 20 years old, the Berlin Biennale is facing something of an identity crisis, and really cracked up with its catastrophic 2016 edition — a fashion-fixated parade of narcissistic jokes, complete with posters snickering about fascism outside a former Jewish girls’ school.

Nothing could be further, at least on the surface, from the last edition’s moral clownishness than the 10th Berlin Biennale, led by the South African curator and artist Gabi Ngcobo. It’s pleasantly small, with just 46 artists and groups, fewer than half the count of the last edition. This biennial is serious, low-temperature and rather distant; an insider’s show, and one that takes almost too much pleasure in saying “no.”