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Browsing by tag: conceptual art

A fragrant atmosphere

Posted by Robin on 13 April 2022 Leave a Comment

The fragrance that has been created by IFF to accompany the portrait is a typical formula for a pomander from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It includes nutmeg, cloves, rosemary, cinnamon, rose, ambergris (produced in the bowels of the sperm whale), and civet (produced in the perineal glands of the civet cat). Certain ingredients were expensive, as nutmeg and cloves were imported from south-east Asia, and ambergris was very rare. The pomander in Besserer’s portrait creates a fragrant atmosphere for his worship, and it magnifies his status through the precious ingredients.

— Follow Your Nose: a Guided Tour with Smells is now open at Museum Ulm in Germany; the pomander scent was created for Portrait of Eitel Besserer. Read more in NOW OPEN: Follow your Nose at Museum Ulm at Odeuropa.

A hot stinky hit of civet

Posted by Robin on 5 April 2022 2 Comments

The fruits of his labour can be sampled from the four diffusers that sit in room 83 of the Prado, delivering their carefully calibrated perfumes at the touch of a screen. As well as jasmine, rose, spikenard, fig tree, orange blossom, daffodil, a bouquet of rose, jasmine and carnation, there is iris – and kid gloves scented with amber.

While Sola opted not to conjure up the smell of the guinea pigs, the peacocks or the hound who has muzzled his way into the picture, he did recreate the scent of the civet who lies coiled in its bottom right-hand corner. Puig’s diffusers dispense a hot stinky hit of civet, which, thankfully, soon fades out.

— Gregorio Sola, Puig’s senior perfumer, creates fragrances for the painting The Sense of Smell, by Jan Brueghel and Rubens. Read more in Prado creates palette of odours to make scents of Brueghel painting at The Guardian. The installation runs through July 3. Below the jump, a 10 minute video from the Museo Nacional del Prado, with English subtitles…

Read the rest of this article »

An aroma that will change from week to week

Posted by Robin on 11 October 2021 Leave a Comment

The hall will also be filled with another, less tangible, suggestion of microbial life: an aroma that will change from week to week, conjuring the fragrant history of the Bankside area around the museum, from the Precambrian and late Jurassic eras to the Machine Age. Among the scent profiles Yi has created are those that represent more noxious periods in London history, including the smells of cholera and the bubonic plague.

— Artist Anicka Yi's Turbine Hall takeover starts tomorrow (and runs through mid-January) at the Tate Modern in London. Read more in The Artistic Aromas of Anicka Yi at The New York Times.

Last scents

Posted by Robin on 6 October 2021 Leave a Comment

[Artist Anicka] Yi’s work is often olfactory, honouring the sense she thinks humans have neglected in favour of the optical. “I’ve always maintained that when you’re on death row,” she once said, “you should get last scents or last sounds, the same way you get last meals.”

— Read more in ‘I sculpt the air’ – does scent artist Anicka Yi plan to make Tate’s Turbine Hall smell like vaginas? at The Guardian. Yi's exhibit at the Tate Modern will open on October 12.

A futuristic immersive experience

Posted by Robin on 24 September 2021 2 Comments

To launch Phantom in the UK, Impero has conceived a futuristic immersive experience set within a spaceship that will land in London's bustling Spitalfields. Inside Paco Rabanne will host "The future of fragrance", a digital exhibition where six digital artists have created works inspired by the fragrance. Exhibits include a cosmic garden and a breathing computer-generated sculpture. The build is by experiential agency Bearded Kitten.

— Read more in Paco Rabanne hosts digital art exhibition inside a spaceship at Campaign.

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