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If There Ever Was ~ an exhibition of extinct and impossible smells

Posted by Robin on 22 April 2008 9 Comments

The Reg Vardy Gallery at the University of Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, England, will host If There Ever Was: an exhibition of extinct and impossible smells:

In his book of essays entitled, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, the physician Lewis Thomas wrote, “The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking itself.” And it is with this appreciation of smell as comparable to thought and interpretation that the exhibition If There Ever Was considers scent as integral to the perception of abstraction and representation.

Scent is the essence of physical presence and lends proof to our surroundings. Contrastingly, the fourteen scents re-created for If There Ever Was are inspired by absence. Like a cabinet of intangible curiosities, their forms are drawn from disparate stories throughout history for which few, if any, objects remain. And although it would be easy to pass the exhibition off as a work of pure fantasy—the product of an over-active perfumer’s imagination—beneath the olfactory theatricality lies a serious scientific basis, says James Wong, a botanist at Botanic Gardens Conservation International, UK.

The participating artists include Kóan Jeff Baysa, Mark Buxton, Bertrand Duchaufour, Christoph Hornetz, Christophe Laudamiel, Patricia Millns, Steven Pearce, David Pybus - Scents of Time, Geza Schön, Sissel Tolaas, and Maki Ueda.

The exhibit runs from 4/29 through 6/6.

(via regvardygallery.org)

Update: see a review of the booklet that accompanied the exhibit.

Filed Under: perfume in the news
Tagged With: bertrand duchaufour, christophe laudamiel, conceptual art, david pybus, geza schoen, mark buxton, sissel tolaas

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9 Comments

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  1. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 3:03 pm

    Another cool exhibit. Thanks for the notice, R.
    By the bye — Heather and I went to the Exit Art exhibit in NYC — remember the notice you posted about the “reoderant” awhile back? It was…underwhelming. An interesting idea, not very well executed. The smells were especially bad, as though they had taken out the insides of airwick fresheners. But I was very encouraged by the fact that someone attempted the idea at all, and that they received the cash to try!

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  2. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 3:11 pm

    Thank you so much for posting about that Exit Art exhibit — nobody ever does come back to tell me about such things! And solely due to sour grapes it is lovely to be told it wasn't worth the bother anyhow.

    This one though — Bertrand Duchaufour & the rest — I have a feeling I'd really like to smell.

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  3. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 4:02 pm

    Perhaps it will tour!

    The one I really want to see if the one with the paint impregnated with fear sweat. That woman is amazing. I passed on all the links you posted about her to a friend who is a professor of interior design — she was very excited.

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  4. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 4:26 pm

    Super interesting!

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  5. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 5:10 pm

    Yes! You saw she was in this exhibit too?

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  6. Anonymous says:
    22 April 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Now that sounds interesting, I'll have to try and think of some other reasons to justify a visit to Sunderland (beloved won't drive me 3hrs to go to a smell exhibit without some payoff!)

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  7. Anonymous says:
    23 April 2008 at 8:28 am

    It does sound interesting — 3 hrs is a long drive though!

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  8. Anonymous says:
    6 May 2008 at 6:40 am

    Hello,

    Thank you for your interest. My name is Rob Blackson and I am the curator of the show. I hope that you will come up and visit the exhibition. I appreciate that a three hour drive is quite a haul. But if you want to get a whiff of each of the 14 smells commissioned especially for the show you are welcome to buy the exhibition catalogue. It sells for £12 and is available from Reg Vardy Gallery 0191 515 2128.

    If you have any questions about the show, please feel free to ask.

    Best wishes,

    rob

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  9. Anonymous says:
    6 May 2008 at 9:38 am

    Thanks for commenting, and hope the show is going well.

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