Copycat Killer or Smelling a Sense of Home

Abstract

For a long time, I have been fascinated by the artistic and participatory possibilities of ephemeral materials in exhibition contexts. I have been researching the social and aesthetic implications of sensory experiences in various museum projects, classrooms, and publications. In my dissertation Kunst Riechen (Smell Art) I investigated the potentials of aesthetic experiences of smell in contemporary art projects and their application in educational contexts.1 Smell Art discusses odor in contemporary fine arts and examines how olfactory art can be used in educational settings. The artistic strategies and exemplary works by artists who consciously use smell are at the heart of my study. My investigation focused on possible changes in reception habits and aesthetic experiences through odor-based art. I used my findings to develop ideas on how to exhibit and mediate contemporary olfactory arts. In 2018, I met the artist Matt Morris at the 106th College Art Association conference in Los Angeles, for which our smell-art-loving colleagues Debra Parr and Gwen-Aël Lynn organized a panel on Olfactory Art and the Political.2 In this panel, researchers and artists working on smell uncovered and examined the various dispositions of olfactory artworks, the role that odor takes in contemporary and historical practices, and how olfaction not only challenges the visual, but also negotiates social demands for deodorized bourgeois (exhibition) spaces. Here, the question of how activists deploy olfactory tactics to achieve their goals was posed.3 Dorothée King & Matt Morris in Conversation