Museum of Arts and Design Announce Chandler Burr’s “Art of Scent” Exhibit Curations – Nov 13, 2012

Chandler Burr, as many of our readers know, is the Curator for the The Art of Scent, 1889-2012,  which is the first museum exhibition dedicated to exploring the design and aesthetics of olfactory art.  Twelve pivotal fragrances, dating from 1889 to the present, were chosen  to open the exhibit  and will be on  view November 13, 2012, through January 27, 2013, at the Museum of Arts and Design. The scents will be experienced individually in a special installation designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that emphasizes the distinct combination of artistry and chemistry entailed in their creation. The Art of Scent will be accompanied by a boxed catalogue designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro for MAD, featuring identically bottled samples of select works in the exhibition. 

The exhibition opens with the work of Aimé Guerlain, who was among the first to introduce synthetic molecules alongside natural materials with the design of Jicky (1889). The exhibition will then lead visitors through an olfactory experience that showcases the work of the most significant scent artists of the 20th and early 21st centuries, including:

• Ernest Beaux, who in 1921 used chemical compounds known as synthetic aldehydes
  in combination with a floral structure to create the first great modernist work with Chanel N˚ 5;
• Bernard Chant, whose Aromatics Elixir (1971) was one of the great mid-twentieth century works that brought America into the forefront of perfume creation
• Olivier Cresp, whose Angel (1992) is the paradigmatic gourmand work of the late 20th century;
• Annie Buzantian and Alberto Morillas, who in using a carbon dioxide extraction in their influential Pleasures (1995), mainstreamed a major technological advance in the medium and altered olfactory design; and
• Daniela Andrier, whose Untitled (2010) is an ingenious neo-brutalist work that references nature both violently and abstractly.

 

 (to read the complete article, click here)