I think the "problem," if there is one, is a bit different. If the art itself had some clear blatant social/cultural message, it would be far too passe (or naive, wholesome, lame, etc.) to be included in the Biennial in the first place.

The curators often choose art that is self-consciously opaque (or meaningless, depending on your opinion). It follows that writing about the art will be the same.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. If art "gets something wrong," it doesn't really matter. This is sculpture, not wikipedia!

The only ones who should be worked up about curator's complex interpretations of "communication structures and systems of exchange" are those readers who care what art curators (or even sculptors) have to say on those subjects.

I think the same dynamic exists in many fields that have sort of reached their limits, and now don't know what they should be doing. Peter Wolf's "Not Even Wrong" addresses this issue in physics. (See http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/)

[...]academics who use jargon to signal to one another their initiation into the world of.... jargon.

and then two sentences later:

[...]contemporary art centers and whatever kunsthalles

Now either that was a tongue-in-cheek illustration of the phenomena you critique, or an instance where you're guilty of the same sin.

Mind you, kunsthalles isn't as bad as dropping in an untranslated German word from Kant, Hegel, or Heidegger, which is a favourite pass-time of the October crowd, but still, it is a shibboleth that only folks who read a lot of art crit are going to be familiar with. (oops, did i do the same thing there, or does shibboleth count?)

However, I agree with the sentiments expressed here, and hold up Time's very own former critic Robert Hughes as an exemplar of how to write about art in as complex a fashion as any big T Theorist without alienating anyone, and do it with a tremendous amount of wit and flair. I didn't necessarily agree with his assessments a great deal of the time, but I always found his writing insightful about the work, I understood exactly what he said, and enjoyed the way he said it.

Expressing a fondness for Hughes has oftentimes made me the target of the condescending stares the hoity toity reserve for the hoi polloi (greek now?).

I also agree that a great deal of the academy-speak allows you to say something that isn't obviously refutable because it's so vague that it's not really saying anything, which defends you from the most horrible accusation a critic/curator could face: dilettantism (oops, that's a French one).

This is not a problem unique to the curatorial profession.

In my undergraduate experience as an art history student, I find that many of my peers (and some of my professors) are more worried about having the "right" or accepted answer to a work than anything else. Being right- otherwise known as being able to read and regurgitate the correct buzz words- is valued more than having than a new idea or reading of a work of art. While I cannot personally attest to whether this happens in graduate school or not (I'm not there yet!), I have been told by acquaintences and professors that this is very much perpetuated in post-secondary education. Furthermore, there is very little discussion of art theory in undergraduate study. Perhaps by encouraging independent thought, right or wrong, this problem could be addressed. A change, too, in methodology and didactic rhetoric, would be nice.

And, as ruthk suggests, creators should be reminded of their primary goal in art- they should be able to translate academic ideas into plain language and concepts for the general public. If the insiders really need it, curators can always record the jargon-filled version of an exhibition onto one of those little headsets... you know, the same way that they record information for foreign language speakers.