My experience with my second global art exhibition, documenta 14, couldn’t be more different than the first. We spent a little less than a week steeped in the world of documenta, and I was lucky to have already visited the Venice Biennale as a point of comparison. I found myself returning to the differences between their structures, especially the time frames (the Biennale is, as you could probably guess, every two years; documenta is every five). I found that documenta seemed as a whole to be more cohesive both in terms of subject matter and in presentation than the Biennale.

However, something noticeable that I was continually aware of was how different I felt at documenta than at the Biennale. Something about the Biennale made me feel guilty—for feeding into the machine of global art tourism, for contributing to the thousands of tourists who visit Venice each day and are causing it to sink into the ground, for being privileged enough to be able to feel guilty about it—but I didn’t feel the same way with documenta. Perhaps it was because both “global art tourists” and citizens of Kassel were present at the show, or because Kassel was proud to host it, or because the works on display seemed more important or political, or because the artists present in the show were not making work that will be sold. Either way, I felt less like I was contributing to the machine of the global art market. These works seemed less like the only people able to lay eyes on them were affluent.

I think that part of this shift in audience stems from the simple question of accessibility. First of all, people have to take time off of their jobs to travel. This seems more feasible for Europeans, where summer travel is a cultural norm. For most people in western Europe, it is potentially pretty easy to get to Germany once the time is taken off, since it’s pretty central, and northern Italy is a little more out of the way. But there are differences between Venice and Kassel that provide a stark contrast: firstly, people actually live in Kassel, making documenta an exhibition that caters not only to people visiting the city but also its residents. Kassel is immensely proud to host documenta, but the Biennale is less of a part of Venice’s local identity. In addition, there are many sites in documenta where a ticket is not required and entry is free. This allows for documenta to be accessible to the residents of Kassel who might not want to or be able to afford a ticket. While the Biennale also has free sites, such as many of the national pavilions, there are just so many fewer residents of Venice that the audience is naturally much smaller.

In addition, the works on display at documenta (and they way in which they were displayed) felt more like the exhibition was aware of and addressed many more issues that were relevant to the general public than the Biennale. Most notably, I think documenta’s address of the global migrant crisis is relevant not only to Europeans but also to Kassel residents, especially considering that Germany is taking in many more displaced people than other European nations, and thus has a larger population. I think my opportunity to act as a global art tourist has afforded me a rare perspective as an undergrad. I have now been made aware of how most of the art world consumes new works. I can’t help but wonder, though: if the art world is the only audience for this work, does it matter? It is for this reason that I appreciate the wider accessibility of Kassel over Venice.