The art world has, it seems, always smelled of perfume. Years later in , Dali would release his first perfume under his own brand. There are now a honking sixty-nine different fragrances from the Dali brand that has outlived its namesake. Other celebrity artists like Andy Warhol and Niki de Saint Phalle have lent their names and aesthetics to signature scents. In this way, the distinctions between artist and perfumer have blurred so that designers in niche houses like Serge Lutens, D.
Meanwhile, there have been artists whose conceptual practices have led them to the use of scent in galleries. Artists like Brian Goeltzenleuchter and organizations like the Institute for Art and Olfaction continue to explore the potential for the olfactory as a meaningful dimension of artistic experience. At the level of Chicago, no one could be said to be doing more to enrich the discourse around scent and art than Debra Parr, Professor of Art and Art History at Columbia College.
Parr deserves her own full articles about her research, curating, and teaching around scent; she deserves many such articles. In , she curated Volatile! For this piece of writing I circled back and reached out to them to see if they would respond to a questionnaire about their personal relationships to wearing fragrance, in the spirit of fashion magazines sidebars, chunky September issues in anticipation of fall styles, and alternative points of access for what these creatives do.
She is a multidisciplinary artist who uses personal narratives to inform her work. I purchased my first perfumes as a teenager. And response. Smell is more directly in contact with the emotional regions of the brain than any of the other senses. So we first respond emotionally to an odor then we identify it.
I also think it is fascinating that each of us has a unique odor identity, like a fingerprint. Light and fresh. More drawn to clean citrusy scents. Neroli is a particular favorite.
