I posted about Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli's faux perfume, Greed, a few weeks ago. The exhibit opened at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome on Friday. Below is the the short film shot by Roman Polanski. Starring Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams.
Francesco Vezzoli Greed
Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli (you can read more about his work here, here, and here) will launch a faux perfume called Greed on February 6 at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome:
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present GREED, A New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli, the artist's latest work that replicates the strategy and aesthetics of a commercial perfume launch.
Just as Marcel Duchamp created Belle Haleine: Eau de Voilette in 1921 using a Rigaud perfume bottle with an altered label, Francesco Vezzoli has created a signature perfume for the contemporary moment…
Clive Christian Sound of Perfume
Clive Christian has invited 50 student composers from the London Royal College of Music to create piano compositions inspired by the line's three fragrances, X, 1872 and No. 1. You can follow the project at the website, The Sound of Perfume. Nine finalists will play their compositions in front of a live audience on February 4; the winner will receive "a generous cash prize".
All proceeds from the project will be used to establish a scholarship at the Royal College of Music. (found via gcimagazine)
One man’s stink…
One man's stink is another man's major art project.
A piece by Belgian conceptual artist Jan Fabre at Antwerp's MuHKA contemporary art museum is challenging the nose as well as the eyes.
The installation "Spring Is on Its Way" consists of onions and potatoes hung from the ceiling in condoms. And the vegetables are, well, spoiling.
— From Organic Art Spoils the Pleasure of Patrons in The Washington Post, an article about artist Jan Fabre's installation at the exhibit COLLECTIE XXIII, which runs through 4/1 at the MuHKA museum in Antwerp. Many thanks to March for the link! (image via muhka.be)
Bonus reading: Meat sculpture causes stink at BBC News and 2004 interview with Jan Fabre at Sculpture.org.
If There Ever Was… a book of extinct and impossible smells, by Robert Blackson ~ perfume books
What does communism smell like? How about the Sun, or Cleopatra’s perfume, or the atomic blast that destroyed the city of Hiroshima? This booklet, published on the occasion of the exhibition If There Ever Was, attempts to bring distant, elusive, and sometimes impossible olfactory experiences to life. Curator Robert Blackson commissioned thirteen fragrances from eleven perfumers and smell artists, including Bertrand Duchaufour, Christophe Laudamiel, Christoph Hornetz, Mark Buxton, Sissel Tolaas, and Geza Schön. If, like me, you missed the show at the Reg Vardy Gallery, this booklet gives you a chance to smell them all in the comfort of your own home.
Each scent of the exhibition is encapsulated in a scratch-n-sniff card, and comes with a short explanatory text. What these fragrances have in common is that they all refer to objects that are absent from our experience: they represent things that are temporally and/or spatially remote. There are no traces, for instance, of the original recipe to Cleopatra’s perfume; we can only guess what it really smelled like…