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Topics are diverse just as the world is diverse, she says. The upstairs gallery is themed around air and carries a smell of the western Norwegian shore carried through the air with fans that circulate when there is a storm happening in Norway.
— On “RE______.”, the Sissel Tolaas exhibit at The Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more in Exploring the depth of smell through art at Penn Today.
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The upshot is that you can expect about 30 percent of your receptor arsenal to function differently than your neighbor’s, which explains why conversations starting with “Do you smell that?” so frequently devolve into farce. A substance like androsterone—a musk found in human sweat, truffles and elsewhere—can smell like sandalwood or urine or nothing at all, depending on the nature of the smeller. For a long time researchers believed that “asparagus pee” wasn’t universal, because only certain people reported a malodorous bouquet after consuming the spiky veggie. In fact, only some unlucky noses can detect it, but for those who can, the odor is universal—a fact those subjects realized “only when they smelled each others’ urine,” Keller says.
— Read more in Sniffing Out the Science of Smelling at Smithsonian.
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One of the few champions of the olfactory senses as an artistic medium is Sissel Tolaas, a Norwegian-born, Berlin-based artist that has been exploring smells for more than 25 years. [...]
“Smell is everything. Wherever there’s air, there is a smell,” said Tolaas. “It’s why I call myself a professional in-betweener, because life is everywhere. Where there’s smell, there’s life.”
The Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania is now hosting Tolaas’ first major U.S. exhibition, with the abstract title “RE______.” An earlier version of the show was originally created by the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, Norway.
— Read more in Dollars and scents: Follow your nose through this exhibition at ICA at WHYY. The exhibit runs through December 30, and you can find out more here.
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“Scent is difficult to control,” the gallerist said. There’s fear of odors spreading and contaminating other works, which is fair—following an early show by artist Camilla Nicklaus-Maurer, Keller had trouble getting the smell of banana out of his own clothes. These days, however, he’s equipped with a pump that can turn over the air inside the gallery within an hour.
— Read more in Olfactory Art Dealer Andreas Keller Already Knows How to Sell to Clients Looking for Rare Perfumes. But Art Collectors? That’s New Territory at Artnet. Keller's gallery, Olfactory Art Keller, is in New York City's Chinatown.
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For me, perfumery is an art itself. In the '60s, a perfumer called Edmond Roudnitska said that perfumery is an art and it's between sculpture and music. It's like music because as perfumers we speak about notes, accords, and composition, and when we describe a perfume we can give them shapes. It can be a square, round, velvety, sharp, or metallic. Here we merged two arts: painting and perfume. Research has shown that you remember something better if you are smelling at the same time as seeing, so it's a good idea to combine the two.
— Puig perfumer Gregorio Sola on creating the fragrances for Museo Nacional del Prado's scented installation for the painting The Sense of Smell, by Jan Brueghel (see post from April). Read more in Gregorio Sola, Senior Perfumer At Puig, On Crafting Scents For Public Spaces at BeautyMatter.