Perfumery is not just a matter of mixing aromatics in a vessel, but it is effectively a network, where texts meet practice, trade, geography, politics, and religion in a literal and material manner.” — James McHugh
perfume
“The bottle of perfume, which Marthe […] nonchalantly holds in her right hand, is the all-important barrier and go-between, positioned at that point of confrontation where body and light touch as they dramatically push and pull against each other. The bottle is filled with a liquid as yellow as the wallpaper and as golden as the glowing radiance advancing from behind the window curtains. The perfume in its vessel is yet another form of light within the painting.” – RICHARD STAMELMAN
“I switch perfumes all the time. If I’ve been wearing one perfume for three months, I force myself to give it up, even if I still feel like wearing it, so whenever I smell it again it will always remind me of those three months. I never go back to wearing it again; it becomes part of my permanent smell collection…Odors are at once evocative and suggestive, redolent with significance.”
– ANDY WARHOL
“The scent of empires: Chanel Nº 5 and Red Moscow” is the title of a new book by the noted German historian of Eastern Europe Karl Schlögel.
“Sometimes at parties I slip away to the bathroom just to see what colognes they’ve got. I never […]
“An everlasting fragrance is a paradox.” – THEODOR W. ADORNO
When Fragrances Tell: Olfactory Storytelling
Wenn Düfte erzählen hiess es vom 26. Mai bis zum 2. Juni 2019 in Solothurn. Im Rahmen des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds Agora Projekts Smelling more, smelling differently an der Berner Fachhochschule gab es eine Eventreihe mit mehreren hundert Besuchern, die als innovatives Duft- und Literaturfestival in die Annalen geht: interaktiv, partizipativ & performativ. Die Entwicklung neuer Düfte wurde zuvor in zwei weiteren Nationalfondsprojekten in Bern aus einer Managementperspektive mit einem innovativen Methodenmix untersucht. Wenn Düfte erzählen erweiterte diese Ansätze für den Dialog mit der Öffentlichkeit. Hier ein Rückblick auf Präsentationen, Schreibateliers, Workshops, Lesungen und die Duftbar.
“Duft (i.S.v. Parfum) ist nichts und kann deshalb alles werden.” – CHRISTIAN JANECKE
“Wherever I create something I like, I can be sure that it is too far out.” – ANDREAS WILHELM
“Perfume plays a social role in that it effects a unique synthesis of individual egoistical and social purposes in the field of the sense of smell.” – GEORG SIMMEL
“There are strong perfumes for which all matter is porous. One would say they go through glass…” — CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
There is a long lasting history of dealing with scent in pop music. More recently, Jeans for Jesus, a widely known player in the local pop music scene in Switzerland, made an interesting move:
“Perfumes are the soft-focus lense on our rough daily existence. They are the invisible, user-friendly interface in daily human interaction. They are sheer present – yet we have unearthed their primordial past. They seem pure phenomenon – yet they contain memory, erratic and unpredictable. And although they seem to lend themselves so well to the game of pure simulation, they do have dark and uncanny origins.” – HANS RINDISBACHER