one painting show

I visited the Louvre DNP Museum Lab again this year to see their interactive installations developed around ‘The Slippers’ by the 17th Century Dutch painter Samuel van Hoogstraten. As in past exhibits, the show – which takes roughly one hour to see – focuses entirely on one piece of art on loan from the Louvre. Instead of spending the hour rushing through packed galleries, visitors to the Museum Lab have the luxury of concentrating on only one painting. The experience is far more memorable. In the sloppy video I montaged above, you can see several of the interactive installations that they have developed to reveal the rich symbology of the image. Touch screen interfaces are used to demonstrate the perspective of the interior scene and to call up the significance behind particular objects in the scene. Augmented reality tags on exhibit placards pull up an animated curator on the ubiquitous portable museum guide. Simple touch interfaces serve to research related texts and images. The Museum Lab makes a convincing argument for a new type of exhibition where more space is devoted to the study of artwork than to the art itself.