This past Winter, I participated in a Women’s and Gender Studies and History OCS program to India. While those two subject matters were our primary focus, we also took a class on tourism, more specifically about tourism in the Third World. We discussed the subjective nature of the “tourist gaze,” and the performativity involved in tourism. More specifically, we examined how being a tourist means performing a search for the extraordinary. The extraordinary is found in experiences, different than those of one’s everyday life. One of the primary factors that constructs the extraordinary experience is authenticity. Tourists want to experience a place as if they were a local, in order to get the most “real” touristic experience.

As a tourist, one strives to distance oneself as far from the label of a tourist as possible. Calling an experience “touristy” suggests that it is not authentic. As a result, there is a paradox in what we look for as tourists because we want experiences to be extraordinary, but at the same time authentic. There is an incongruity between these two concepts because authentic experiences for a local are often part of their mundane existence, not something extraordinary. Ultimately, tourists search for the extraordinary in “the other’s” everyday existence. For instance, while we were in Venice, I think the main reason I enjoyed living on Giudecca so much was because it felt detached from the overwhelming tourist culture of Venice. On Giudecca, I felt like I was experiencing something authentic to Venetian culture; whereas, the rest of the city seemed constructed for the tourist experience– not for real Venetians.

On this program, I have been thinking about how this search for authenticity can be applied to art tourism. Like the types of tourism we talked about on my last program, notably religious tourism and ecotourism, I would argue that art tourism is also founded in this search for authenticity. As art tourists, we embark on what seem like pilgrimages in order to see works of art in real life, despite the fact that many of them are so familiar to us as images. Even though images of the Mona Lisa, of The Birth of Venus, of Starry Night are so deeply ingrained into people’s minds, tourists still need to see them in real life to be able to claim that they have seen them. We have been taught that seeing a work of art in real life is entirely different and superior to seeing a photo reproduction of it. You cannot claim to have seen the Mona Lisa unless you have seen it in the flesh. But has not everyone seen the image of the Mona Lisa? Why is that less authentic of an experience?

On this program, I had the opportunity to see Vermeer’s The Milkmaid at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. This is a painting that I have always been fascinated by, and was so excited to see it in the flesh. Its realness and proximity was overwhelming to me, as the filter of the photographic reproduction was broken down. I spent a significant amount of time with the painting, noticing the textural differences in the paint and subtle highlights. I left the museum feeling so elated. However, later that day, I began to think that maybe I just fabricated the fact that I had really experienced the work differently in real life. Maybe I had constructed the specialness of this experience because I was expecting it. Could I have been tricked by the industry of art tourism? I am really just playing devil’s advocate here, because I do believe that there is immense value in seeing works of art in real life. I would not be on this program otherwise. That being said, I think it is important to evaluate how the logic underpinning the art tourism industry affects the way we experience art.

The art tourism industry, therefore, runs on the value we attach to viewing works of art in real life. As art has moved farther and farther away from the two dimensional painting hung on a wall, it has become increasingly based in experience. You do not simply view art anymore, you experience it. These experiential works depend increasingly on the physical presence and participation of the viewer. One work that embodies this idea is Alicja Kwae’s WeltenLinie at the 57^th Venice Biennale. The installation is composed of a set of tall mirrors arranged so that painted rocks appear to double or change color as you move around them. The unsettling experience of walking through the installation and not knowing whether or not you are walking towards a mirror is incredible. This work depends on the viewer’s presence and participation, physically moving around the installation.

As a result, the art tourism industry is only strengthening as art works become increasingly dependent on the viewer’s presence. If a work is inherently participatory, art viewers have to travel to see it. Therefore, as the art world becomes increasingly steeped in the experience economy, the art tourism industry becomes increasingly fortified. So, is the increasingly experienced-based art world feeding its tourism industry? What changes in the art world will affect art tourism in the future? We will have to wait and see.