From its first edition, the biennale has tried to reflect that inclusiveness. For this one, Ms. Dube recruited more than 100 artists from India and 30 other countries. More than half are women, and many, like Mr. Das, had received little previous exposure.

Shambhavi, a painter and sculptor from the rural Indian state of Bihar, said that women who are artists had long struggled to get the same attention as men. Her work here — a cluster of 300 sickles and other abstract sculptures of farm life — has no distinct gender cast. “But the farmer's world is very feminine, close to the earth,” said Shambhavi, who uses one name professionally.

Contemporary art can be difficult for audiences anywhere to understand, and especially so in India, a nation of 1.3 billion people with little arts education, few museums and almost no government support for the fine arts.

Galleries and private museums have begun to take root in some cities. The Kerala government is a major sponsor of the Kochi biennale, which cost about $4 million.

However, India’s leaders have generally focused on other needs, such as food and health care for the many Indians who live in deep poverty. The art that does get funded tends to support political goals. The government just spent about $430 million to build the world’s tallest statue — a 597-foot monument to the independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel by the sculptor Ram V. Sutar — in Gujarat, the home state of India’s current prime minister, Narendra Modi. Two bigger statues, of the ancient king Chhatrapati Shivaji and the Hindu deity Ram, are planned in other states run by Mr. Modi’s party.