It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to see one of the greatest -- and most fragile -- works of European art before your very eyes. The illustrated manuscript known as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry contains images that have shaped our view of the late Middle Ages, but it's normally kept under lock and key at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. It's only been exhibited twice in the past century. Now newly restored, the glowing pages of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry are on show to the public for just a few months. "Approche, approche," the Duke of Berry's usher tells the visitors to the great man's table for the feast that will mark the start of the New Year. It's also your invitation to examine closely the illustration for January, one of the 12 months from the calendar in this Book of Hours -- a collection of prayers and other religious texts -- that form the centrepiece of this exhibition in Chantilly. It's su...
Night is falling, and in Paris and Vienna, Berlin and New York, the clubs and cabarets are getting ready for business. There's music to be made, avant-garde art on the menu, a hint of rebellion in the air. That's the atmosphere we were hoping for in Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art , an exhibition at London's Barbican Art Gallery. So can you feel the energy, sense the vibe? Frankly, no. Keep your jacket on, they advised us at the cloakroom, it's a bit cold in there. And they were right. It's not that there's a lack of interesting material on show here; there's some compelling art and some cracking stories to tell. But sadly, it's largely a dry and clinical exhibition-going experience. Where's the music, where's the action? Where's the life? Only occasionally do you feel truly drawn in to the maelstrom of artistic experimentation. Anyway, Fremder, étranger, stranger, where shall we begin our night on the tiles? How about ...