TRADITIONAL German insult: ''Ab nach Kassel''. This translates as ''go to Kassel'' and it means, roughly, ''I never want to see you again, leave my presence and spend the rest of your life (I hope it's short) in total obscurity''. If you wanted to find a place in England with a similar reputation, you might settle for Coventry; and on a rainy day in Kassel, you might be forgiven for imagining you were in Coventry. With its expanses of bleak, grey, 1950s architecture, it is a place that seems never to have recovered from the devastation wrought upon it by incessant bombing raids during World War II.
 
But for a brief period, once every five years, the phrase ''Ab nach Kassel'' loses its pejorative connotations. Last week about 5,000 people from all over the world, with no intention of dying in obscurity, turned up in this provincial German backwater. The waiters in the city's restaurants, unaccustomed to such demand for their services, appeared to suffer some kind of communal nervous breakdown. Obtaining lunch could be counted on taking at least three hours, and one of the minor entertainments of the week was the sight of wealthy Americans actually begging for food. The citizens of Kassel always seem unprepared for the temporary popularity of their town.

The occasion for this bizarre gathering was an event members of the art world had been referring to for several months as The Opening. By a freak of history, Kassel is the regular venue of the largest and most ambitious contemporary art exhibition in the world. It is called Documenta, and has been described as visual culture's answer to the Olympics. At the art Olympics, the audience gets to run the marathon. It takes about two days of hard slog just to see all...

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