Olfactory art is an art form that uses scents as a medium. Olfactory art includes perfume as well as other applications of scent.
The art form has been a recognized genre since at least 1980. [1] Marcel Duchamp was one of the first artists who pioneered with using scents in art. [2]
In 1938, the poet Benjamin Péret roasted coffee behind screens at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme which was orchestrated by Marcel Duchamp, and was possibly one of the first true examples of olfactory art. (from the book "Salon to Biennial - Exhibitions that Made Art History", Volume 1: 1863-1959 Hardcover – July 2, 2008 by Bruce Altshuler)
A series of chess sets where the pieces could be distinguished only by scent were made by Takako Saito in 1965. [2] Spice Chess and Smell Chess relied on the use of spices or scented liquids in the pieces. [2] In Spice Chess, the black king was scented with asafetida, the black queen with cayenne, and the black bishops with cumin. [2] The white pieces included cinnamon pawns, nutmeg rooks, ginger knights and an anise white queen. [2]
Self-Portrait in Scent, Sketch no. 1 was a 1994 exhibit by Clara Ursitti at The Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, Scotland. [3] It consisted of a small, specially constructed room outfitted with motion sensors and scent dispensers. [3] Art historian Caro Verbeek, [4] of the Vrije Universiteit and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, cites this work as a breakthrough in both artistic and technological terms. [5]
Green Aria: A Scent Opera was an exhibit by Christophe Laudamiel at the Guggenheim that incorporated both over two dozen fragrances pumped through special "scent microphones" to 148 seats, accompanied by music. [6] Some scents were intended to invoke natural fragrances, while others were described as "Industrial" or "Absolute Zero". [6]
Sillage is an ongoing olfactory public artwork by Brian Goeltzenleuchter in which the artist asks a city's residents to name smells associated with different regions of the city. He then translates the responses into bottled fragrances representing each region. The project culminates in an event at an art museum during which visitors are sprayed with the scent of their neighborhood and are encouraged to interact with others who smelled differently. The resulting scent portrait is intended to stimulate conversation and provide a representation of the museum's demographic. [7] In 2014, the Santa Monica Museum of Art (now Institute for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles) hosted the project. In 2016, the project was realized at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
LacrimAu was an exhibit by the Czech artist Federico Díaz at an exposition at Shanghai. An individual could enter a glass cube containing a 30 inch tall golden teardrop. After putting on a headband, the person's brainwaves would be read by sensors, which would translate them into a uniquely tailored scent. It was described as a "surprise hit". [8]
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. He has had an immense impact on 20th- and 21st-century art, and a seminal influence on the development of conceptual art. By the time of World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists as "retinal", intended only to please the eye. Instead, he wanted to use art to serve the mind.
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Perfumes can be defined as substances that emit and diffuse a pleasant and fragrant odor. They consist of manmade mixtures of aromatic chemicals and essential oils. The 1939 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, Leopold Ružička stated in 1945 that "right from the earliest days of scientific chemistry up to the present time, perfumes have substantially contributed to the development of organic chemistry as regards methods, systematic classification, and theory."
Old Spice is an American brand of male grooming products encompassing aftershaves, deodorants and antiperspirants, shampoos, body washes, and soaps. It is manufactured by Procter & Gamble.
Chandler Burr is an American journalist, author, and museum curator.
A perfumer is an expert on creating perfume compositions, sometimes referred to affectionately as a nose due to their fine sense of smell and skill in producing olfactory compositions. The perfumer is effectively an artist who is trained in depth on the concepts of fragrance aesthetics and who is capable of conveying abstract concepts and moods with compositions. At the most rudimentary level, a perfumer must have a keen knowledge of a large variety of fragrance ingredients and their smells, and be able to distinguish each one alone or in combination with others. They must also know how each reveals itself over time. The job of the perfumer is very similar to that of flavourists, who compose smells and flavourants for commercial food products.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 2006 period psychological thriller film directed by Tom Tykwer, who co-wrote the screenplay with Andrew Birkin and Bernd Eichinger, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Patrick Süskind. The film stars Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Dustin Hoffman. Set in 18th-century France, the film tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Whishaw), an olfactory genius, and his homicidal quest for the perfect scent.
Bertrand Duchaufour is a French perfumer. He has had a prolific career, beginning in Grasse at Lautier Florasynth and continuing for a number of fragragrance firms as well as working independently and as the house perfumer for L'Artisan Parfumeur. He has drawn praise for niche perfume creations as well as mainstream hits.
Mandy Aftel is an American perfumer. She is the owner and nose behind the natural perfume line Aftelier as well as the author of nine books, including four books on natural perfume and a cookbook on essential oils.
Spice Chess is an artist's multiple by the Japanese artist Takako Saito, while she was resident in the United States. Originally manufactured winter 1964–65, and offered for sale March 1965, the work is one of a famous series of disrupted chess sets referred to as Fluxchess or Flux Chess, made for George Maciunas' Fluxshop at his Canal Street loft, SoHo, New York City and later through his Fluxus Mail-Order Warehouse.
"Takako Saito engaged with Duchamp's practice but also with masculinist cold war metaphors by taking up chess as a subject of [her] art. Saito's fluxchess works... question the primacy of vision to chess, along with notions of perception and in aesthetic experience more generally.... Her "Smell Chess," "Sound Chess" and "Weight Chess" reworked the game of chess so that players would be forced to hone non-visual perception, such as the olfactory sense, tactility, and aurality, in order to follow chess rules." Claudia Mesch
Christophe Laudamiel is a French perfumer, chemist, writer and model. He is co-founder and Master Perfumer of DreamAir creative studios in New York City, where he currently resides. In 2019 he was named Chief Perfumer to BélAir Lab in Tokyo: a perfume composition and technology studio newly managed by Rohto Pharmaceuticals. He is a founder and president of the non-profit Academy of Perfumery and Aromatics.
Francis Kurkdjian is a French perfumer and businessman of Armenian descent. He is best known for creating the men's fragrance Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier in 1995, which has become one of the world's best-selling perfumes. He has since created a further 40 fragrances for major companies worldwide, including Elie Saab Le Parfum for Elie Saab; My Burberry for Burberry; L'extase for Nina Ricci; and Narciso Rodriguez for Her for Narciso Rodriguez, Green Tea for Elizabeth Arden.
A fragrance wheel, also known as aroma wheel, fragrance circle, perfume wheel or smell wheel, is a circular diagram showing the inferred relationships among olfactory groups based upon similarities and differences in their odor. The groups bordering one another are implied to share common olfactory characteristics. Fragrance wheel is frequently used as a classification tool in oenology and perfumery.
World Sensorium is a natural and inclusive world scent, a work of olfactory art by interdisciplinary artist Gayil Nalls, who is based in New York. A large-scale conceptual project and social sculpture, the world scent comprises the most culturally significant scents of 225 countries combined proportionally, according to the statistical population data of the year 2000. World Sensorium has been recognized by UNESCO and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities as a global peace project and has been internationally exhibited in large public events, museums, and galleries since its creation in 1999.
The Art and Olfaction Awards are a non-profit award mechanism designed to celebrate excellence in international artisan, experimental and independent perfumery and olfactory art through a yearly blind-judged competition.
The Institute for Art and Olfaction is a non-profit organization devoted to advancing public, artistic and experimental engagement with scent. It was founded in 2012.
Oswaldo Maciá is a sculptor. Born in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, he is based in London and New Mexico, USA. Maciá works primarily with sound and smell. In his work he endeavours 'to extend the meaning of sculpture' beyond an ocularcentric understanding of the arts.
Peter de Cupere is an olfactory artist who lives and works in Antwerp. De Cupere creates work intended to explore experiences of smelling.
Clara Ursitti is a Canadian-Italian artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. She was born in North Bay, Ontario in 1968.
Olfactory heritage is an aspect of cultural heritage concerning smells that are meaningful to a community due to their connections with significant places, practices, objects or traditions, and can therefore be considered part of the cultural legacy for future generations.
Niche perfume is an alternative to mass perfume production. Niche is limited by the clientele and therefore with a limited sale range, thus the goal of niche houses is not to sell as much as possible.