SCI is happy to invite you to EPHEMERAL MATERIALITIES: Scent in Swiss Art – 3 Positions, an exhibit of olfactory art curated by Ashraf Osman at the ArtContainer in Zurich​. New works by three wonderful Swiss artists are shown: Anna-Sabina Zürrer, Claudia Vogel, and Habib Asal. The vernissage is next Tue. 20 Oct. at 6pm, and the exhibit will run till Nov. 13; we hope you can make it!

Scent traces its roots in art back to the beginnings of modern art in the 20th century. It has demonstrated throughout that century surprising resilience, thanks to its versatility and ability to adapt to the shifting winds of modern art movements. With the turn of the millennium, however, there has been a veritable boom in scent art production around the world. On the one hand that may be explained by the multitude of new possibilities engendered by recent technical advances; on the other hand it could be attributed to the sense of isolation and disembodiment brought on to our lived experience by these very same technological shifts.

With the digitization of sight and sound, smell has become one of the last bastions of materiality in an age of immaterial globalization. The resistance of odor to digitization makes it one of the aspects of an artwork that still demands the physical presence of its audience in order to experience it. As such scent is, perhaps unintentionally, emerging as a refuge for the necessity of embodiment in the artistic experience.

While perhaps unassuming, the Swiss art scene has been particularly fertile ground for artwork experimenting with scent. It may not be surprising given that Switzerland is home to the two largest fragrance companies on earth and some of the biggest players in the art world. However, the practices emerging here are doing so independently of the nexus of money and power around, creating scent artwork that is as diverse as contemporary art can be. This exhibition hopes to highlight some of these exhilarating works by Anna-Sabina Zürrer, Claudia Vogel and Habib Asal, which balance the tension between the embodied and the ethereal…

Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/715013115266939/

With the support of Stadt Zürich Kultur and Scent Culture Institute

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