Just 100 years ago, Monet was watching light dance over water lilies and Matisse was scandalizing art critics with his wild use of color.

Installation by Kitsune Akimoto, part of the ongoing International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Yokohama 2001

We all know, of course, that postmodern art has left such quaint concerns behind. "Technique is totally irrelevant," a French curator told me recently. "All that matters today is issues and ideas." This is what moves the modern art machine.

Not surprisingly, therefore, there is plenty to provoke, puzzle and even dismay at Yokohama Triennale 2001, Japan's first major international exhibition of contemporary art.

The organizers want this event to go beyond the usual boundaries. So amid such studiedly tasteless offerings as "Planet of the Sexoids" and a column of glistening human fat, might there be room for a little beauty? Mystery? Or a glimpse of an eternal truth?

To those who consider contemporary art largely joyless and inept, I bring encouraging news from Yokohama. There are things here to admire -- and even enjoy.

But they are scattered amid the huge Pacifico exhibition hall, the old Red Brick Warehouse and gritty reclaimed parks of the bay.

First, let's bypass the rubbish. Exhibits such as Gabriel Orozko's suitcase (blink and you'll trip over it) and Adel Abdessemed's three-second video constantly declaiming "Adel resigns!" are hardly worth a mention. Let alone an exhibition space. Let alone a fee of 1 million yen.

Fortunately, even though their meaning may be wrapped in obscurity, the majority of the participants are struggling to convey a genuine belief.

Take a video by a Vietnamese artist, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba. On first viewing, the film of boys pushing bicycle-rickshaws on the seabed was dull and mildly distressing. The second time, however, I was struck by the grace of these watery creatures as they broke free from their contraptions amid glittering bubbles. But had the boys suffered for someone else's "art"? What was it all about?

On reflection, it could have been about hardship and hope. That's the difficulty with art nowadays: There are no rules and few common assumptions -- except that serious art should not be decorative. While everyone can safely agree that Monet's paintings of poplar trees are lovely, no one can agree about a few copper wires stretched across a room (Siobhan Liddell's "Energies That We Know Are Here but Cannot See"), because the latter calls for a very personal response.

One pattern emerges, however. The exhibits that rely on shock are usually too simple to truly catch our imagination. It is those with layers of meaning that linger in our minds.

In German Florian Claar's intriguing work, for example, one may find a poetic feeling for landscape, a geologist's fascination with rocks and a philosopher's musings on time. Carefully contoured models of mountains change color, as if with the passage of years.

And there is a waterfall by Toshikatsu Endo that touches, perhaps, the eternal cycle of life. Profoundly simple, it is in the Japanese tradition of truth that is felt rather than expressed.

After five hours of artistic confrontations, somewhat tired, I crept into Kitsune Akimoto's small tatami room, lit by a naked light bulb. My spirits instantly revived with his witty animation, "UFO." His is the irrepressible spirit of manga, and long may it live.

Another eye-catcher is Makoto Aida's "Juicy Blender," an impressive, large-scale painting of countless young women being liquidized. The swirl of naked girls had a calm kind of beauty, as if their end was not torture but destiny.

Yet nearby, Aida has hung some monstrous tatami mats. These things, that should be perfectly clean, were sordid with detritus. The title is "Homeless Along the Arakawa River." So there is truth at this exhibition, and beauty, too. It is just that they reach us in disturbing ways.