Dear Everyone!

Today’s Art Dispatch (quasi) Daily will introduce you to Peter de Cupere.  He is a Belgian artist who has made impressive inroads into exploring the potential in scent art works.  These take the forms of installations or individual standalone pieces.  He places smells in unexpected objects and has been known to create disassociations between the objects that you see and the smells that prevail.  From his website:

” Everyone who has ever smelt Peter De Cupere‘s work cannot fail to recognise that his works prompt quite a reaction. You either love it or you feel attacked via your nasal senses. If the latter is true it is often because the spectator adopts a reserved attitude at first as a result of being wary of the unknown. That is exactly why smells in art have been and are still positively avoided. People like to compare and want a return or recognition. This is difficult with smells because they act directly on the limbic system and don‘t give you the necessary time and chance to translate things like you do with „sight“. Smells act on your memory subconsciously and so you associate your own subjective feelings with a specific smell. Your attitude to the object is determined by the smell memory of a certain moment. Add then the combination with the visual aspect of the artwork and you get a mix that does not appear to be completely predictable. Alongside the pleasance of some smells there are also smells that warn us of danger though we do not always heed these indications because of habituation.”

I love the idea of exploring sensory experiences in artwork.  I’m not sure how much I’ll enjoy the experience more than the idea – but isn’t that how a lot of contemporary art works these days?  (Well concept + documentation + documentation + documentation!)

http://artworlds.eu/peterdecupere/

A video of a ’smell happening’:

http://www.smartvideoserver.org/qt_player.php?moId=181&meId=894

Attached images are:

Black Beauty No 1 -> Used in the above smell happening video

Good Morning Darling -> 56 Illy Coffee pads

Winter Landscape -> 207 used handkerchiefs with eucalyptus

Recycled Raindrops -> 1000 jars of water mixed with bits of food

Spaghetti House 1,2,3  -> House made of 900 Kg’s of spaghetti