For Sissel Tolaas there are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ smells. She sees smell as information, or a tool of navigation and communication. Several contemporary artists decided to put nature on a different level of perception too. While most people feel disgusted by a crawling cockroach, a picture of a human skull made out of shiny fragments of cockroach wings seems simply fascinating and very aesthetic. Who still thinks the latest issue of mono.kultur about Sissel Tolaas smells bad, should bear in mind that the smells that were used to make the issue were all made in a laboratory.
Many examples of mulchy, redolent, unmistakably organic art are on display in a new exhibit called Dead or Alive, at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
Photography: Keith W. Bentley’s Cauda Equina (1995-2007). Approx. 1.4 million hand-knotted horse hairs, fabric, taxidermy mannequin, resin.
One Comment
This is stunningly fascinating as also many scientists in the field of sociology and psychology are arguing if there are ‘good’or ‘bad’ smells. It is no more no less the arguing of what comes for free and what has a social background. The same goes for what is visually disliked. As this is not going to be the next mono.issue I will put some light into this field with my next blog entry.