Bottle of liquid doom

Posted by Robin on 18 April 2016 8 Comments

To create this fatalistic fragrance, the pair went through the Book of Revelation, plucking out every mention of a scented element: thunder, blood, rocks of the mountains, incense, wormwood, rod of iron, creatures of the sea, hail and fire, animal horns, flesh burned with fire, brimstone and, of course, a grievous sore. They then passed this somewhat unlikely shopping list on to Edinburgh-based perfumer Euan McCall to turn the 1611 King James Bible’s vision of annihilation into a “wearable scent”. That’s right, a limited-edition bottle of liquid doom can be yours for just £300 plus VAT.

— You can smell Apocalypse, a fragrance by artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead, at the exhibit Party Booby Trap at Carroll/Fletcher in London through 25 May. Read more at I sniffed the end of the world, and it smells like bile and dread at The Guardian.

Botanical Fragrance From Plants to Perfume

Posted by Robin on 6 April 2016 2 Comments

Scent is an integral part of communities from around the world, from incense used in prayer to fragrant flowers offered as a sign of love, to the $30 billion perfume industry. The world of plants is central to this industry, supplying essential oils derived from flowers, barks and roots, supplying inspiration and imagery, and supplying molecules that can be manipulated into something new to the human nose. [...]
This exhibition focuses on the complexities of fragrance, featuring a collection of plants traditionally used in the perfumer's palette. We have tied each one to the distinct perfumes of French master, Serge Lutens. Come visit the Lyman Conservatory for an exploration into this fascinating corner of botany and sample a fine French fragrance, Datura Noir.

— The exhibit Botanical Fragrance From Plants to Perfume will run during the month of May at the Physiology House, Lyman Conservatory, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The beauty of decay

Posted by Robin on 24 February 2016 Leave a Comment

For her latest project, commissioned by the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum for the fifth installment of its Design Triennial, she tackled the scent of Central Park. Tolaas has done location-focused works in the past, capturing the scents of places such as Istanbul and Greenland, and with Manhattan’s most famous park in the Cooper Hewitt’s backyard, it made sense to develop a work based on that area.
But as the theme of this year’s Triennial is “Beauty,” Tolaas sought to play against what she calls “the classic clichés” of the word. When someone tries to imagine a “beautiful smell,” he or she might imagine perfume, fragrant food or some other pleasing scent. But for this show, Tolaas says, “I wanted to show the other side, and look at the beauty of decay.”

— Scent artist Sissel Tolaas has a touch-and-smell wall at the Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial, open now through August 21. Read more at Can Smell Be a Work of Art? at Smithsonian Magazine.

Fragrances are volatile and you cannot escape them

Posted by Robin on 13 January 2016 Leave a Comment

Many things in our environment have a smell: the bouquet of flowers on the table, the co-passenger on the train, grandparents' flat, the dog of a neighbour, or the first snow of the year. Fragrances are volatile and you cannot escape them. As sensual messengers they arouse emotions and memories; they can provoke, attract or repel, influence moods, seduce or beguile. But what does smell got to do with art? Nothing, at first glance. In art, the sensuous is mostly limited to seeing and hearing, smell is usually only secondary. However, for a long time scents have been part of art – from the material to the subject, whether physically present, in memory or imagination.

— Schupperschau 1: The scent of the material is the first of a four-part series of exhibitions related to smell and art. It opens on 13 February at the Kunstmuseum in Thun, Switzerland.

A curtain of scented mist

Posted by Robin on 12 January 2016 5 Comments

Videos (scent-free, sorry!) from recent scent installations created by perfumer Francis Kurkdjian of Maison Francis Kurkdjian. The first was for a retrospective of the work of French painter Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun at the Grand Palais, Paris. “This new installation, which [Kurkdjian] created with scenographer Séverine Baehrel, is inspired from floral ornament, a recurring pattern in the Vigée Le Brun work. It is magnified with a poetic rose scent that adds a sensory element to the exhibition and echoes ‘A la rose‘, a fragrance from the Maison Francis Kurkdjian collection. More below the jump…

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

Bottle of liquid doom

Botanical Fragrance From Plants to Perfume

The beauty of decay

Fragrances are volatile and you cannot escape them

A curtain of scented mist