The exhibition Le parfum dans tous les sens, currently on display in the gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris through June 14th, offers an unexpected sensory adventure.
The fragrance is invisible, but through Gabriel Bauret’s curation, it corresponds to photographs that suggest it, with each viewer having his or her own perception. Throughout the exhibition, unsuspected and forgotten fragrances are revealed through a subtle, almost invisible installation. Who can capture the scent of rainy Manhattan when cotton candy aromas draw one in irresistibly? Photography is polysemic. Gabriel Bauret here provides the proof.
L’Oeil de la Photographie: Where did you get the idea for this olfactory photography exhibition? Did you start with a catalogue of fragrances or photographs? Which artists are featured in the exhibition?
Gabriel Bauret: I responded to an offer from Terre Bleue, which had undertaken a project with the Fragrance Foundation. We designed a two-part exhibition divided into documentary and artistic parts. The former examines the highlights of the creation of a fragrance from its conception to its marketing. The latter is less didactic, suggesting through objects, bodies, landscapes, gestures, atmospheres and various situations a set of scents which aren’t necessarily perfumes in themselves. Rather, they are aromas that overlap with other senses, hence the title of the exhibition, Le parfum dans tous les sens (“Perfume for all senses), opening with a network of correspondences. These works of photography were chosen because they represent memories involving our collective olfactory memories. But everything in this exhibition, with the exception of two photographs shot for the occasion by Emile Loreaux and Albert Giordan, were taken from series that already existed. I dug deep into my library and memories, asked photographers I knew, and not just in France, but Italians like Giorgia Fiorio and Mimmo Jodice, Spaniards like Jordi Bernadó and Juan Manuel Castro Prieto, South Koreans like Bohnchang Koo, Russians like Alexey Titarenko, Dutch like Wout Berger, and Swedes like Helene Schmitz. And in France, Bernard Plossu and Lucie & Simon. Sacha van Dorssen shot the photograph on the poster. She has had a long career in the fashion world, which made her the closest to the theme of the exhibition. The photographers possess very different sensibilities and come from different cultures.
Is the layout of the exhibition a sensory experience in itself? How was it conceived? And how is it experienced?
GB: Generally, in an exhibition, the layout aims to enhance the visual sensations. In this case, a word placed next to each image suggests an olfactory dimension. It creates a bridge between what is represented and an odor. (The word “odor,” in French and English, connotes something unpleasant—better to say “scent.”) Moreover, in this exhibition, the installation is reduced to its simplest form of expression. We’re somewhat limited by the position of the walls, so we had to rely on the sequence of the photographs, and the dialogue between its documentary and artistic sections, creating a visual “echo” between the images, although it might not always be perceptible to the viewers because the olfactory sensation is highly personal and subjective.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
EXHIBITION
Le parfum dans tous les sens
UNtil June 14th, 2015
Jardins du palais Royal
75001 Paris
France
http://www.fragrancefoundation.fr
