“So we thought an odor couldn’t hurt” – MARTIN KIPPENBERGER
smell in art
“The Perfumative. Perfume in Art and Design” was the title of an international conference at Zurich University of the Arts (8-10 November 2018). The conference seeked to open up a dialogue between perfumers, researchers, designers, and artists.
Portraiture is known as a visual art genre. Yet, working with body odors has given rise to artistic works that explore new sensory territories. A lecture with Claus Noppeney at Columbia College in Chicago discussed this development: Can a smell represent a person? How is an olfactory portrait experienced in an art space? How relevant is the process? …
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.
Michael Müller, best known as a sculptor, shows in his recent exhibition at the Berlin based gallery Thomas Schulte a series of small sculptures taking the form of perfumes, soaps etc. The perfume contains a drop of the artist’s sweat as Michael Müller remarks in an interview:
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:
A feature on some recent developments with respect to scent culture appeared in The Guardian on 16 September 2016: “technology addiction makes us crave smells”.
The new Monda Gallery of Contemporary Art at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida opened on November 4 with a site-specific installation by American artist Anne Patterson, featuring a scent by Beau Rhee.
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”.
The Geneva newspaper, Le Courrier, has published an article by Samuel Schellenberg on olfactory art, C’est dans l’air!, which features the Scent Culture Institute and our Kunstmuseum Thun series, as well as olfactory artist Peter de Cupere, Mike Bouche’s The Zurich Load at Manifesta 11, and Museum Tinguely‘s “Belle Haleine: The Scent of Art.
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”.
Elodie Pong, video and installation artist from Zurich, investigates the invisible olfactory architecture that surrounds us as the point of departure for her solo exhibition at Helmhaus Zürich.
“…The arts world of the 21st century should take these innovations as a challenge to make resonant new works incorporating aromas, and not allow these tools to simply become devices for social grooming and more effective product placement.
The10th Mercosul Biennial opened in Porto Alegre, Brazil with a major exhibition on smell: Olfactory: Smell in Art.