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Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry at Chantilly

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This week I made the trip out to Chantilly where, in the Jeu de Paume, the Condé museum is showing, quite exceptionally, the calendar folios of the Duc de Berry's  Très Riches Heures . These twelve double-page spreads have just been restored, which explains why it was possible now to display them individually, in specially-made, air-conditioned cases, before they are bound back into the book and shut away, like Sleeping Beauty (the original Disney version of which they are said to have influenced), for the next hundred years, maybe more. The museum is marketing the show as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. According to museum director Mathieu Deldicque, who also curated the exhibition: ' This manuscript was already famous in the Middle Ages. By putting it back into context, we can better understand what makes it the most ambitious, where it came from, who commissioned it, and why, from the 15th century onwards, it had such a profound influence on the arts, manuscripts, painting,...
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Ali Eslami, Mamali Shafahi - nerd_funk. Seven-year project finally on show at MU Hybrid Art House, Eindhoven

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  Four years ago, already, I posted an article about nerd_funk, and what I saw as the emergence of a whole new genre . In it, I called nerd_funk 'an ambitious, multi-faceted project by Ali Eslami and Mamali Shafahi,' and explained that the aim was 'to curate an archive of thousands of Instagram stories Ali and Mamali see as relevant to their interests (...) and use it as a base of source material for new kinds of experience for users/spectators: immersive experiences, which may be seen as artworks, film, documentary, entertainment, or all of these and more.' These experiences include a major VR component. It has been a long-term project, as reflected in the subtitle - 'A Seven-Year Odyssey' - of the exhibition now on (April to June 2025) at the MU Hybrid Art House in Eindhoven. The installation combines three eight-minute VR experiences with other video-based activities, fairground-style games, a library and an assortment of related artworks, designed as a jour...
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Paris tips: visiting

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  Note : this post and the April 28 one, about eating out, were written for American friends visiting Paris, one of them for the first time, who wanted a few tips from a local. They were staying in a hotel just off République... ***** I guess you'll have your own guide book to help you plan your visit. But whichever one (or more) it is, I thought you might find the Michelin Green Guide 's tourist map of Paris (below) helpful, as it makes it easy to locate the main sights. I think you'll find if you click on the map, it will blow up to a more legible size. The inset box at top left explains Michelin's ratings system, similar to its approach to restaurant ratings. With a decent guide book, you won't need much help from me, but I just wanted to add one or two items that visitors might miss, plus an idea for a north-south walk (or south-north, as you wish) that makes a change from the usual main east-west (or west-east!) drag. Also, finally, one neglected but unique mus...
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