Ten Reasons Non-Art People Should Care About the Venice Biennale

When the 56th Venice Art Biennale opens to the public on May 9, visitors will be able to tour submissions from 89 countries spread across the city, where some of the world's top curators have chosen ambitious, often highly political and socially oriented artworks. The big question is whether anyone outside the art world will care.

While other facets of the global art scene can attract broad curiosity—the auctions for their insane prices, the art fairs for their giant parties, the gallery openings, simply because anyone in the vicinity can attend—Venice's Biennale presents a much higher bar for entry. For starters, it's difficult to claim that this is for the citizens of the city, who've dwindled to around 60,000. There’s also the difficult subject matter that many of these pavilions address, occasionally in a manner that, if we’re being generous, is less than crystal clear.