Painting is born in a smelly studio. – JIM ELKINS
artworld
Art Basel offers a premier platform for renowned artists and galleries. The 49th edition brings together about 290 galleries […]
In today’s art world the sensorium is focused on the visual. A closer look however reveals that the sense of smell should no longer be neglected. Here is an ethnographic story from hanging out with art collectors at a recent edition of Art Basel that might be more telling and revealing than any systematic survey.
Artist and writer Catherine Haley Epstein, provides an overview on the role of scent in contemporary art on Temporary Art Review. What is interesting is the broader storyline:
The conceptual artist Anicka Yi, who makes sculptures out of smell, has won the Hugo Boss Art Prize 2016. The magazine Dazed entitles: “Fragrance artist Anicka Yi wins major art prize”.
In the context of the on-going re-examination of the collection at Kunstmuseum Thun, the first exhibition curated by Ashraf Osman and Anja Seiler focused on the olfactory aspects of the material and techniques of art making, which are often smelly, yet widely neglected. In this context, Claus Noppeney gave a talk on 16 March titled “From Sniffing to Art: The Sense of Smell in Artistic Production”.
Olfactory art is on the cutting edge of the multi-sensorial art experience. Denver Art Museum (DAM) is out in front of this trend with their ongoing collaborative efforts with perfumer and olfactory artist, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz.
Pamela Rosenkranz’s Swiss Pavilion in Venice to the Serpentine Gallery’s own perfume, Alice Hattrick investigates the art world’s increasing engagement with scent.
The NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), the Swiss newspaper of record, published a review of the Belle Haleine: The […]
The newest (April) issue of the main Swiss art monthly publication, Kunstbulletin, features an article on Swiss artist, Anna-Sabina Zürrer, titled “Die Suche nach der Essenz” (The Search for the Essence) written by SCI’s Claus Noppeney and Ashraf Osman.
A second look inside–and a different take on–a couple of art exhibits examining scent, by Ashraf Osman and Claus Noppeney:
You may be familiar with exhibitions that have presented perfume as olfactory art. However, olfactory art is a genre of fine art pertaining to smell that traces its roots back to the avant-garde, early in the twentieth century. A new exhibition at Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland, establishes these historical origins of the genre while showcasing a wide range of practices to the present day that could be understood under this rubric.
In the context of upcoming research on the sense of smell in contemporary art practice, Ashraf Osman recently conducted interviews with two key players in the realm: Brian Goeltzenleuchter, an artist based in San Diego, CA, and Robert Blackson, a curator based in Philadelphia, PA. The interviews focused on the norms, processes, and institutions that promote or hinder the use of the sense of smell in art.