Interview: Chandler Burr Shoots from the Hip for Etat Libre d'Orange

Chandler Burr shoots from the hip. This is probably why I consider him a friend. Truth, you see, possesses that rare beauty that can cut like a knife, but still you end up admiring the scarlet track lines. Here's the interview he granted me for the launch of You or Someone Like You, the upcoming fragrant release from Etat Libre d'Orange. Fasten your seatbelts, darlings, it's a bumpy (but oh so effing good!) ride.

Elena Vosnaki: So Chandler...There is a certain path to follow in the realm of being interested in how a seemingly mundane thing can be artistic and can produce fascination. First comes learning about what makes a perfume lover interested in the first place (ergo The Emperor of Scent). Then comes learning about the craft (A Scent of the Nile). Then comes learning about the industry at large (The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry). Then come personal assessments of those mysterious smelly things (NYT Scent critic column). And there are scent dinners (how would it feel if we combined two complementary senses together?) and curating a "blind test" line plus an Art of Scent exhibition (how would it feel if we erased everyone's perceived memory with a magic wand like Men in Black and THEN asked them their honest opinions on Duschamps' Urinal?).

Does art directing a perfume launch feel anti-climatic in comparison?

Chandler Burr: Wow, you've synthesized my entire scent career arc into a frighteningly accurate dialectic. I actually have a very specific answer for you: It was not anti-climactic at all. In fact, art directing a perfume was quite difficult, more so than I imagined before I did it, and my view of whether it came at the right time or the wrong time in my trajectory is split exactly in two. In part I wish I'd done it in 2005, after Emperor, the New Yorker piece "Nile," and Perfect Scent but just before I joined the Times and prepared to become a critic. Why. Because not surprisingly it gave me a deeper, as well as a different, understanding and appreciation for the artistic, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical demands on a scent artist -- Caroline Sabas, in my fortunate experience -- in creating one of these fucking works. For the sake of my criticism, it would axiomatically have made it better. (I think every critic should at least try to create a few works in the medium of the critique. The result has to be humility and wisdom, even for those few who'd turn out to have talent.)

At the same time, for the sake of You Or Someone Like You itself, I'm glad it didn't come till after the Times and the Art of Scent exhibition because those two experiences made me think more about the pure aesthetics and the subtleties of scent art, and I put those into the work I did with Caroline.

 It's an extremely strange relationship, creative director and perfumer. I think the closest analogy would be architect and builder. (Definitely not composer and conductor, that doesn't fit. Nor does author and editor fit, at all.) Studio executive and movie director is actually very good. I had a vision for a work that I had virtually no ability to make myself. I had to communicate it to Caroline. At its best, human communication sucks. The difficulty of telling Caroline what I wanted / didn't want/ liked/ didn't like/ wanted changed/ how I wanted it changed, plus asking for her opinion, which I found extremely valuable, and understanding her perception and the obstacles she faced. Jesus.

Elena Vosnaki: Did Etat Libre d'Orange approach you or you them with the spermatic idea? Have they read your novel?

Chandler Burr: Etienne had read my novel and loved the main character and narrator, an Englishwoman named Anne Rosenbaum who years before had married an American guy -he's now a studio exec- and lives with him in the Hollywood Hills. Also Anne is a reader-- literature is crucial to the novel. Etienne really liked the title as well. Etienne had mentioned a few times over the years our doing a project together, and I think his collection is arguably the single most creatively imaginative and risk-taking in existence today, so I was interested. But I sure as hell wasn't going to creatively direct a scent. I never intended to. I always told people that. I think Etienne would tell you that he found me somewhat frustrating to work with because, along with being a perfectionist, I was highly ambivalent and undecided about whether I should be doing that job.

Although interestingly none of my doubt was about what I wanted for the scent itself. My doubt was entirely, Was I saying the right things to Caroline or was I talking gibberish? Was I clear? And I know for a fact I sometimes wasn't. Seriously frustrating. Was I too demanding? Was I perceiving reality? Was I "projecting" or self deluding when I hit things I wanted changed or didn't like? Creative directing a perfume is like asking a painter to create Rorschach blots, but in a way you want them, and then making yourself interpret them, and then asking the painter to redo them… Actually, that may be complete horse shit and incoherent, but that's what it feels like sometimes. The scent kept evolving. The Givaudan evaluators, who were very serious and committed to the project, gave me excellent feedback. We finally let Etienne smell the thing, and he liked it, but he liked it too much for my taste, and I thought, "Oh, damnit…" Then went back to Caroline and asked for more changes.

Elena Vosnaki: Is the scent concept a meta-reading of the novel's idea of Otherness? It seems so to me!

Chandler Burr: OK, no. No. Wait, have you read the novel? If you did and told me you did, I completely forgot. [Elena: Yes, I have. No, I did not.] Otherness is one very good way to describe You's central theme. Or stupid, racist understandings of Otherness as opposed to serious, meaningful understandings of Otherness. Certainly it's about the fact that the Big Four, the largest four theological global conglomerates competing for market share, should be shut down and that we need to replace God, which doesn't exist, with good, which does, and that literature shows us this. Hell, I've gone off the rails now, but that's sort of the point, which is that the scent's concept has zero to do with any of this. It's incredibly simple. It's the scent that Anne would wear. No meta, no super. I thought: She lives in LA, where in my experience 99% of people recoil at the word "perfume" and anything heavier than Eau de Thé Vert is considered a fire in a coal mine. I get that. Anne would wear a post-perfume scent. (When people, normal people, not you and me and perfume shrine readers, say "perfumey" they mean aldehydic + heavy floral, which they associate, almost always correctly, with grandma. For ten years, Giorgio of Beverly Hills covered Beverly Hills like chlorine gas, and it cured everyone in LA of every wearing "perfume" in quotes again.)

I knew Anne's scent would be Luminist, the school Ellena both pioneered and uniquely mastered, it would be Naturalist/Realist, i.e. it would contain references to the natural world. Anne is a gardener, and her garden--I put their house on Macapa Drive above the 101 if you want to googlemap it--is a central location in the novel. And that's it. That's all Caroline and I did -- tried to make a perfume for this person who doesn't exist.

(By the way, you know what a dick I am about "gendering" fragrances. You was made for a female character, and as I've often said if you actually believe that means men shouldn't wear it, you don't know anything about scent.)


Elena Vosnaki: Well... We're both dicks then. But Los Angeles is semiotically a loaded place for several reasons. Some of which are described in your text about the inspiration behind the scent. Some others are added by the recipient of the smell depending on whether their associations come from the cinematic realm (glamor and/or decadence) or an actual visit to the place (physical sensations hitting the nose velcro). What was the single most important element that you thought that You or Someone Like You needed to focus on?

Chandler Burr: A culture, for lack of a better word. Ethos? Mindset? You focuses on contemporary Los Angeles, which is more a state of mind than an actual place. The LA sun creates a huge olfactory output. The smell of that hot, hot sun hitting the asphalt, the concrete, the hills of dry dust and palm trees, the ocean water. The eucalyptus, the morning overcast, which for me always focuses the scents like a magnifying glass when I go out to my car at 7am and everything is silent and coated in gray. Then it burns off by 10 and the sun is creating a different perfume. Sorry, I'm giving real world references when my point is that LA lives inside these scents and radiates its fabulous, insane, beautiful LA-ness through them.

I think I don’t know how to answer this question.

Well, here's something. The version of You we went with wasn't the one I myself was going to choose. We went -- and I don't regret this at all, I completely support this -- with a very similar but different one because there was an aspect of it that Etienne, Caroline, and the Givaudan team preferred for a reason. I don't want to be specific, but we wore and talked about them at length, I listened to them, and in the end I thought "You know, I'm going to trust them." So I did. As a journalist and critic, I hated the plastic creative director script, "OMG, it's my scent, it's perfection incarnate, my perfumer reached into my brain and put my neurons in a bottle, I love this scent more than my own lung tissue" etc etc. I think You is a good scent. I think people who like its aesthetic school will like it. It's not Drake (a bore), it's not Max Richter's Sleep (which I'm playing on my computer as I write this) and it's not Katy Perry (so fun). It's The Chainsmokers "Closer" meets a Satie tone poem. And that's exactly what I wanted. 

via

Elena Vosnaki: Is it easier to work with a perfumer when you know a bit about the actual bits that go into the formula or did you find this knowledge detracted from the artistic process like -say- focusing on whether one is using Prussian Blue oils on thick canvas instead of the more fluid acrylic in the same shade?

Chandler Burr: I called Karyn Khoury just before starting to work with Caroline, and she gave me great advice, including "Be patient. Don't panic if you lose youself in the mods. Keep breathing, and they'll come back into focus." She also said, "I never suggest specific materials to the perfumer." That one I completely reversed on. I know I don't want birch tar or amyl allyl caproate. I know it. And I found that far from throwing Caroline, when I suggested a material, or specified one I didn't want, it actually helped her understand, it communicated what I wanted, even if the material I said I wanted wasn't, in fact, the best one for that job and she used a different one. I find it insanely helpful to know what I know about raw materials. Crazy helpful.

 Because I hate the "So what are the 'notes'?" idiot reductionism that we apply to scent but would never apply to painting or music because we respect those mediums ("Well, does it have violas in it? I only listen to music with violas. The oboe? I'm not buying anything with an oboe!") I finally got Etienne to agree that not he, nor Etat, nor Givaudan, nor I, no one was going to talk about the raw materials in You. It's THE FUCKING WORK. Don't walk down the street with your headphones on second guessing the sound mixer on Frank Ocean's music. Just listen to the music. They thought I was crazy which is to say they thought I was stupid. Maybe. I've seen two pages of comments on my "Don't ask me about the materials" stance, and on both a majority of people said, "Burr is such a pretentious asshole." Whatever, man, you do, go focus on "notes" and buy something else. Or smell You and buy it if you like it. See, THIS is really cool -- I wrote this a thousand times in the New York Times, and now I get to put my money, or my no money, where my big mouth is.

Elena Vosnaki: This is the best test for anyone's inherent arrogance I suppose! So continue being honest: How many mods did it take for this to get finalised with Caroline Sabas? I hear 200-300 or more is not unusual for major releases and I do know of a few niche ones which took as many. Is it always better to try and try again or is there a fine point when you are destroying the soul of the creation? I find that constant editing really does work with writing (and this is why I'm asking you as your being an author informs your frame of thought and habit). It does not necessarily work with musical interpretation however. One cannot bribring back that rush of feeling that is new and "innocent" once we parse a musical piece to bits; our playing tends to become effortless but a tiny bit constipated (for lack of a better term?). How is it with perfume art direction? Does one know when to stop?

Chandler Burr: I can honestly say I have no idea how many mods Caroline made. And I really don't think it matters. You know, this "number of mods" stat they hand out, 99% of the time it's bullshit like everthing else in our industry that's given to the public. The more the mods, the closer to sainthood or some crap like that. Bitch, please. You can nail a perfume in two mods, and I know because Frederic Malle did (and fuck me if I can remember which perfume it is…?! Frederic told me this at lunch years ago, and I loved hearing it. He asked for one, very small, very specific adjustment of the first mod, and that was it. He agrees with me that The Award For The Most Mods is only coveted by numbskulls.

Elena Vosnaki: Is this project to be repeated in a second scent launch or has the circle closed on this and there's a different stop to the bus ride on that path we talked about in the beginning?
Chandler Burr: This is it. I'm working on several other projects, all connected to scent, none to creative directing another one.

Thanks Chandler for a fabulous interview. Best of luck with the perfume launch!

Etat Libre d'Orange You or Someone Like You: Chandler Burr Shares His Inspiration Behind the Fragrance

The staccato bravado of État Libre d'Orange's fragrant creations is the stuff of legend. (Who can forfeit their sentiments upon smelling the infamous Secretions Magnifiques for example?). The credibility and creative inquisitiveness of Chandler Burr is the stuff of steadfast reality. Imagine combing the two into a single item that you can actually claim as your own.

To make it short and concise, Chandler Burr, author of the novel You or Someone Like You among other works, former NY Times scent critic and curator of museum exhibitions and scent dinners, has art directed a perfume for  État Libre d'Orange that officially launches on April 3, 2017, named You or Someone Like You.

Here is what Chandler told me about the inspiration behind the new niche perfume launch You or Someone Like You.

 "There is an Englishwoman who doesn’t exist. Her name is Anne Rosenbaum, and I created her in my novel “You Or Someone Like You.” She lives, with her movie executive husband, in a house high in the blue air of the Hollywood Hills, just off Mulholland Drive, overlooking Los Angeles above the 101. 

 I’m fascinated by LA, this strange dream factory that exists in its eternal, relentless present tense, its otherworldly beauty both effortlessly natural and ingeniously artificial. A movie that makes movies. Palm trees, the symbol of LA, aren’t natural there. They were imported, placed in the hills, “but then,” Anne observes to you, “so was I.” 

Los Angeles’ smells mesmerize, the astringent mint/green of eucalyptus, wild jasmine vines unselfconsciously climbing the stop signs, catalyzed car exhaust, hot California sun on ocean water (although “You” contains no jasmine or eucalyptus; if you need to know what it’s made of, “You” is not for you). 

When Etat Libre d’Orange approached me about creative directing, my perfumer Caroline Sabas and I created not a “perfume” -- people in Los Angeles don’t wear perfume – but a specific scent, the scent someone like Anne would wear, an Angelino Englishwoman high in the hills in the blue air."

Sounds like something I should dig with the fervor of a scent hound. Stay tuned because we have an exclusive interview with Chandler Burr coming up soon. 

NB. There is an Etat Liubre d'Orange discovery set sold on Amazon here and another on on this link.

Eric Buterbaugh Florals Scent Dinner with Chandler Burr

"An evening of scent and cuisine". This is the promising tag line of a new scent dinner organized by former New York Times scent critic Chandler Burr and Eric Buterbaugh of Buterbaugh Florals who unite their forces to offer an all-encompassing sensory experience.

WHERE
Eric Buterbaugh Gallery
8271 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90048

WHEN
Friday 14th of October 2016 at 7pm.

The scent menu is created by Burr (above) from gourmand essences and materials in Buterbaugh's (below) eight floral perfumes. The culinary menu is overseen by Viviane Executive Chef Michael Hung.
Sounds enticing!

You can reserve your seating by contacting gallery@ebflorals.com

Chandler Burr's Untitled Series Back at Full Swing

The Untitled Series
A specific fragrance, chosen by author and critic Chandler Burr and presented anonymously, allowing you an uninfluenced opportunity to smell, guess, and discuss, before the name is ultimately revealed.
The ongoing saga is documented on Luckyscent where you can purchase decants in unlabelled vials from.

For S02E08 Burr writes:
"There is a damp cold that England seems to specialize in, but this cold doesn’t lower the level of scent, and the air was filled with brackish water, wet green grass, damp cement, a few traces of car exhaust and ozone. The wind shifted, and I smelled her perfume...Suddenly there was a completely different green: a spring-twig green, filled with sunlight and mixed with freshly cut grass. A handful of fructose was tossed into the scent along with a few peonies. Then pieces of cool pink fruit. I felt exhilarated. During that moment—maybe five or six seconds—the Newcastle clouds were gone.
I asked her what it was. It’s in these bottles. I imagine most of you will be as surprised as I was to hear her answer."

Reveal date is set for 16/2. Good luck in the guessing game!

The Portal

'The Modernist Austrian architect Adolf Loos is famous for his 1908 contention that "ornament is crime." I love Peter Schjeldahl’s response to this. "Ornament is not crime, OK? Crime is crime." But spray on E07 and you’ll experience how a single work can make you understand Loos’ point of view. E07’s scent artist is, moreover, categorical about agreeing with the architect’s strong, clear aesthetic vision. Loos talked about a 'passion for smooth and precious surfaces', and E07 has one of the smoothest and most precious surfaces of any work of olfactory art ever created.." '

~ Chandler Burr

David Harber "The Portal", 'a dramatic (and substantial) garden sculpture' as per Shioban Casey, 'comprising an amalgam of oxidised steel and mirror polished stainless steel. These two metals have been interwoven creating random organic petals, designed to mimic and reflect the patterns found in nature itself'.

Thus concludes the presentation of the S02E07 "unlabeled" fragrance in Burr's  Untitled Series project.
I usually withhold predictions, yet this time I will make an exception: it must be Eau parfumée au thé vert by famed jewelers Bvlgari and perfumer Jean Claude Ellena.

New Perfume Book: Dior, Les Parfums

For the first time, an official Dior perfume-centered book is set to launch this September: Dior Les Parfums (or "Dior The Perfumes"). The book reprises the history, the artistry and the description of the Christian Dior fragrances from 1947 (the year of the original Miss Dior perfume, currently circulating as L'originale; for valuable info on distinguishing Miss Dior editions consult this link) right up till 2014.

Its author, Chandler Burr, is best known to fragrance aficionados for his fascinating book on the industry, his NY Times scent critic stint, his MAD tenure and his scent dinners.
In 2013 Christian Dior Perfumes approached Burr and proposed a collaboration in which they would create a list of works Burr independently considered aesthetically and intellectually important—commercial scents like “Higher Energy”, though financial successes for Dior, were therefore not included. While writing, the author worked closely with Frédéric Bourdelier, Brand Culture & Heritage Manager of Christian Dior Parfums. The photography is by Terri Weifenbach, fine art photographer and teacher.

Dior, Les Parfums ("Dior, The Perfumes") is published by Rizzoli USA (115$) and comes out on the 24th of September. The book measures 9.75 x 13.75 and costs $76.16; you can preorder it on Amazon following this link.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Christian Dior fragrance reviews 

Guessing Games & The Aesthetics of Innovation

If you have been receiving the Luckyscent newsletters you will know by now of the second series of the Untitled Series by Chandler Burr, which was previously hosted on Open Sky. An improvement, I would assume, on many levels, the new distributor of the project assures a dedicated perfumista core audience. What it involves is easy but brilliant too at the same time: experiencing a scent without the guiles of marketing, design or promo routinely attached to it. No notes, no name, no perfumer, no house, just your sense of smell and small glass vials with a number on it to sniff for a month until the revelation is presented at the end of it (for this month, it's June 25th).

Chandler tries to offer "pure scent", involving fragrances which take the game a step forward and I totally see the reasoning behind this. Whether he succeeds or not is up to you and your own opinions on such matters. My own personal stance is that perfume is so inextricably tied to design & marketing (in fact I consider it ~for the most part and in most cases~ a division of design) it's hard to consider it when bared down to the bone; it detracts from some of its beauty and wit, a bit like the Elgin Marbles as seen at the British Museum rather than under their intended Attic sun; they're still artful and brilliant, but doesn't the whole concept involve context as well? Even so I do think the Untitled Series is a great gauge of just how much our preconceptions act on our perception of scent and how wrong or right we decipher scent each time based on those; I love blind tests myself when I fragrance consult, my subjects often producing stunning results.

To get you all revved up for season's 2 episode's 2 scent, out now, please see a summary of the previous installments and make your best guess on the latest! (There is already discussion on Basenotes, but you're welcome to post your own suggestions here in the Comments).
Here is how Chandler presents S02E02 in his own words:

”I've never met anyone who doesn't like S02E02. In dozens of talks over the years, I've given it to thousands of people in all sorts of cultures, and the range is pleased enthusiasm to hypnotized worship. I'm on the far latter end. Done by one of the greatest living artists, who I'm very glad finally to be presenting in the Untitled Series, S02E02 is I think a quietly seminal work in a specific way: We all know the majority of people today say they 'don't like perfume.' By 'perfume' they mean aldehydes and a booming voice and 'look at me' style. S02E02 forces you to redefine 'perfume.' Wait (people think, transfixed on the sidewalk), what is this? Did an island just materialize around the corner? E02 is the Debussy bridge over which one escapes Rachmaninoff's bombast, transport for all those who yearn for the fundamentally different and exquisite, the liltingly lovely.”

– Chandler Burr

For what is worth, I also have never ever met anyone who doesn't like it and I too find it liltingly lovely… :-)

LIST OF EPISODES

                Season 1

The Untitled Series S01E01: Prada Infusion d'Iris by Daniela Andrier                         Prada

The Untitled Series S01E02: Mugler Cologne by Alberto Morillas                                Mugler

The Untitled Series S01E03: L'Etrog by Rodrigo Flores-Roux and Yann Vasnier      Arquiste

The Untitled Series S01E04: Yuzu Rouge by Raphaël Haury                                            06130

The Untitled Series S01E05: Eau de Lierre by Fabrice Pellegrin                                      Diptyque

The Untitled Series S01E06: Bal D'Afrique by Jérome Epinette                                     Byredo

The Untitled Series S01E07: Vanille Insensee Cologne by Ralf Schwieger                 Atelier Cologne

The Untitled Series S01E08: Rose Noir by Jérome Epinette                                            Byredo

The Untitled Series S01E09: Sel de Vetiver by Céline Ellena                                            The Different Co

The Untitled Series S01E10: Isle Ryder by David Moltz                                                     Hylands

                Season 2

The Untitled Series S02E01: Tom of Finland by Antoine Lie                                            Etat Libre d’Orange

The Untitled Series S02E02: ???

Art of Scent at MAD Museum Opens Finally & Pre-sale of Catalogue

‘The Art of Scent’ at the Museum of Arts and Design, delayed by superstorm Sandy by a week, is finally opening. Curated by Chandler Burr (well known to perfume aficionados so that he doesn't need an introduction), its aim is to place fragrance in a vision-free "zone" to be appreciated as pure art.“The fundamental goal of the department [of Olfactory Art],” mr. Burr said during a recent interview at his office, “is placing scent as an artistic medium alongside painting, sculpture and music.” For however “brilliant” or “extraordinary” the greatest scents may be, he added, “they’re not recognized as works of art, and the artists who create them are not recognized as artists.”

A gallery with 12 gently curved indentations in its walls was created by Diller Scofidio & Renfro. "Hidden behind each is a scent diffusion machine: a visitor who leans into the curve will set off an electronic eye, causing the machine to release a burst of fragrance calibrated to stay in place for four seconds, without spreading across the room (made by the German company Scentcommunication)".[source]

The catalogue of the exhibition is scheduled to be sold and ready to ship in about 2 weeks on the Store at MAD site here (check for pre-ordering). The catalogue includes essays on the fragrances, written by mr.Burr, referenced through art movements that correspond to the scents, and will retail for $250 and there are only 1,000 catalogues, numbered, 1 – 1,000. The catalogue will contain 11 of the 12 works of olfactory art that Burr is exhibiting —they haven’t been able to include Chanel N° 5 which will be exhibited in the show nevertheless. Each fragrance is contained in a Spartan 5ml vial of pure taste.

And the works contained are:

01 Romanticism

Jicky

1889

Aimé Guerlain

Lent by Guerlain

02  Abstract Expressionism

L’Interdit

1957

Francis Fabron

Lent by Givenchy and Givaudan

03 Early American School

Aromatics Elixir

1971

Bernard Chant

Lent by The Estée Lauder Companies and International Flavors and Fragrances

04 Industrialism

Drakkar Noir

1982

Pierre Wargnye

Lent by l’Oréal International Flavors and Fragrances

05 Surrealism

Angel

1992

Olivier Cresp

Lent by Clarins and Firmenich

06 Minimalism

L’Eau d’Issey

1992

Jacques Cavallier

Lent by BPI and Firmenich

07 Photo Realism

Pleasures

1995

Annie Buzantian, Alberto Morillas

Lent by The Estée Lauder Companies and Firmenich

08  Kinetic Sculpture

Light Blue

2001

Olivier Cresp

Lent by Dolce & Gabbana, P&G Prestige, and Firmenich

09 Neo-Romanticism

Prada Amber

2004

Carlos Benaïm, Max Gavarry, Clément Gavarry

Lent by Prada, Puig, and International Flavors & Fragrances

10 Luminism

Osmanthe Yunnan

2006

Jean-Claude Ellena

Lent by Hermès

11 Post-Brutalism

Untitled

2010

Daniela Andrier

Lent by l’Oréal and Givaudan

Perfumer Ralf Schwieger is the Dept of Olfactory Art's (MAD Museum) first Artist in Residence

Ralf Schwieger is the Department of Olfactory Art's (at the MaD Museum in NYC) first Artist in Residence. During Ralf’s residence, which is described on the museum’s website here and here , he will publicly create a work of olfactory art in the 6th Floor’s beautiful glass-walled Artist Studios. Every raw material synthetic and natural is there for the Museum’s visitors to smell, as well as every mod. Visitors are interacting freely with Ralf, asking him questions (most of which he says he’s found, a bit to his surprise, quite interesting; we have smart visitors) and smelling his work.

Chandler Burr, the curator of the exhibition and art director of this project, asked Schwieger to work on an idea of ginger and another idea of spearmint. Each week, Ralf is taking the most promising mod, printing it out, and putting its complete formula on the wall so that visitors are able to watch the work as it evolves. Ralf is in residence every Thursday.

Untitled Series: Fragrance Detection & Appreciation of Pure Juice

Chandler Burr, the curator of The Department of Olfactory Art at New York's Museum of Arts and Design, the scent editor for GQ magazine and the former scent critic for The New York Times, is creating a project on OpenSky that’s never been done before. He’s bringing scent to life online.  It’s called the Untitled Series.

On the 1^st of every month Chandler will choose a perfume that’s already on the market – some famous and some from niche collections.  From this scent, he will remove all marketing -- no bottle, no package, no brand, no name and will put the scent in a 50ml lab bottle – allowing you to experience these scent works as scent and nothing else. He will give shoppers only the guidance of his carefully chosen words to understand each and determine if the fragrance is right for them.  His goal is to both enable and encourage shoppers to rethink perfume as a work of art, free from all visual cues and marketing techniques. Scents include those from the late 19^th century to last week, in all styles and all by the greatest scent artists in the world.  

There will be only 100 bottles available in the series, this month (the amount might slightly vary from month to month). The first fragrance called S01E01 (Season One Episode One) and will launch this Friday, June 1^st on OpenSky and the identity of the scent as well as more about the artist who created it will be revealed to shoppers on the last day of June.  The series will continue with a new launch on the first of every month and a subsequent reveal on the last day of each month. 

pic via marthastewart.com

Donors for the Department of the Olfactory Art: An Eclectic Crowd

The Scent exhibit curated by Chandler Burr at the Department of the Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC is going strong. Donations form the backbone of any scientific or artistic venture with any hope of distinguishing itself so it's heartening to hear things go well for Burr's project.


For 2012 the lookout looks like this:
The Estée Lauder Companies:  Founding Major Donor
Chanel:  Major Donor (both 2012 and 2013)
P&G Prestige:  Major Donor
Hermès:  Major Donor IFF Major Donor
Guerlain:  Funder
Arcade:    Funder
WFFC:    Friend

The donors of the Department of Olfactory Art fall into the following categories
 Friends: $5,000 to $24,900
Supporters: $25,000 to 49,000
Funders: $50,000 to $99,000
Major Donors: $100,000 and above

 Looks like both the industry has embraced this innovative approach of appreciating the juice itself and that the money is flowing freely to support this venture. All around wishes for the best outcome!

The Art of Scent Exhibition: November 13th 2012-January 13th 2013 in NYC

After some communication with Chandler Burr, the curator of Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC, we have an official opening date for "The Art of Scent 1889-2011": Nov 13, 2012.

This exhibition is different than anything you have seen as of yet. As Burr himself explains: "My Department of Olfactory Art is not a physical “department” where I have specific space. All of us curators (we are now 6 total, I think) have the use of ALL the Museum’s gallery space, which are floors 2,3,4,and 5. We can all do programs in the MAD Theater, workshops and classes in the education room on the 6th floor, and we all sponsor artists, who work in various artistic media, in the 6F Artist Studios. (All of these can be seen on www.madmuseum.org.) All of us curators work to assemble exhibitions (concept, budget, budget, budget, works of art we want to exhibit, etc.), and when all the stars line up, we look at the museum schedule and we schedule Show X into (say) the 5th floor space from (say) June 1 to September 1. Then next year your exhibition is put on the 3rd floor from Feb 1 to May 15. You get how it works? We’re all competing for the same real estate, and everyone’s exhibition comes and then goes. (Of course when it goes, that means we’re trying to get it to travel, to be shown at (for example) the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate in London, the Mori Museum in Tokyo, the Austin Museum of Art in Austin, TX, the Hammar Museum in Los Angeles, etc. etc.)"

via thecoolture.com

To help the fundraising a Scent Dinner has been organised (over which Chandler presides but has no monetary control over):

The Museum of Arts and Design’s Visionaries! 2012 Scent Gala

Monday, November 12th, Mandarin Oriental, New York City



"Please save the date of Monday, November 12, 2012 and plan to join Chandler Burr, Curator of Olfactory Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design for a scent dinner in conjunction with MAD’s annual Visionaries! Gala. Each year, the Visionaries! Gala celebrates outstanding individuals in the arts and industry. In celebration of MAD’s inaugural scent exhibition, it is only fitting that many of this year’s honorees are leaders in the scent industry.

Held this year at the Mandarin Oriental, New York City, Visionaries! begins with a cocktail reception and silent auction followed by an awards ceremony and scent dinner lead by Chandler Burr.

The Visionaries! Gala is the Museum’s most important annual fundraiser supporting MAD’s exhibitions and educational programs. A silent auction will include travel and dining packages, exceptional experiences, design items, luxury goods, and jewelry. Each year, more than 500 guests, including arts patrons, artists, designers and noted corporate and civic leaders, attend the event. Ticket prices for the gala range from $1,250–$2,500; tables are priced from $10,000–$25,000"

For more information, please call 212.299.7729 or email Stephanie.Lang@madmuseum.org

Hermes to Join Donors at The Department of Olfactory Art at The Museum of Arts and Design

Good news for the inclusion of know-how and artistry in the olfactory art exhibition at the NYC Museum of Arts and Design. Hermès has become a 2012 Major Donor to The Department of Olfactory Art.

Hermès’ gift is earmarked for the exclusive use of the Department of Olfactory Art and its activities. To quote Chandler Burr, the curator of the exhibition: "As you all know, I’m particularly familiar with Hermès Parfums’ in-house artist, Jean-Claude Ellena, and am extremely happy to have Hermès, this great house founded in 1837, as a donor."
Like The Estée Lauder Companies, P&G Prestige, Chanel, and Guerlain, Hermès will have a seat on the Department of Olfactory Art’s Advisory Board.

"Art As Scent: Jicky, Chanel No 5, Santal Massoïa": A Talk

Chandler Burr, Curator of the Department of Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, former New York Times perfume critic, and author of two definitive non-fiction books about the perfume industry ~among many others, gave a talk on September 23rd at TEDx in Budapest re: his fundamental approach on “Scent As Art”. You can watch it on this TEX Danubia link or in the video embedded below (You will catch some fascinating insights into the newest Hermès Santal Massoia we announced on these pages a while ago).


He illustrates the approach by analysing three fragrances from different eras (NB.descriptors below are his):

- “Jicky” (1889) Aimé Guerlain
From the Collection of Guerlain
The paradigmatic work of turn-of-the-century French Neoclassic/Romanticism.

- “Chanel No 5” (1921) Ernest Beaux
From the Collection of Chanel
The first and greatest work of olfactory Modernism.

- “Santal Massoïa” (2011) Jean-Claude Ellena
From the Collection of Hermès
Ellena’s latest piece done in the school he leads, a work of Neo-Minimalism/ Luminism.

His talk however isn't exclusive of other classics and moderns: He includes a discussion on Germaine Cellier's work and her Fracas icon from 1948, Odeur 53 by Anne-Sophie Chapuis and Martine Pallix (1998) as a continuation of Brutalism, Untitled commissioned by Margiela (a 2010 Surrealist/ Neo-Brutalist work by perfumer Daniela Andrier), Edmond Roudnitska's 1949 Diorama as a consummate work of Abstract Expressionism and Francis Fabron's L'Interdit from 1958, bridging Classicism and Abstract Expressionism.

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Perfumery is Art: Permanent Center of Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts & Design NYC

It was about time! New York City will be the pioneer metropolis to host an official permanent installation featuring perfume as an art form. The Center of Olfactory Art will consolidate the idea that perfumery is an art form, much like other arts (fine arts, cinema, design etc) and the exhibition will be hopefully renewing itself for the foreseeable future. Who will curate this new wing of the museum? Someone who is well known among fumeheads, Chandler Burr (click here for a comprehensive interview with him).



"The nose rarely figures in the sensory experience of a museum visitor. That is about to change at one New York City museum. The Center of Olfactory Art dedicated to scent as an art form was launched at the Museum of Arts and Design on Thursday."What we're going to be able to do ... with the center is place scent directly in the mainstream of art history and demonstrate that it is the equal of paintings, sculpture, architecture and all other artistic media," said Chandler Burr, the former fragrance critic of The New York Times whom the museum said it hired as its -- the country's -- first curator of olfactory art. More a curatorial department within the museum than a separate entity, the museum created the new center because "scent is a really interesting part of the world of design," museum director Holly Hotchner told The Associated Press.It fits the institution's DNA as a "sensuous, sensory-orientated museum" where patrons can touch and feel many of the objects. And of course, smell is as much a part of the senses," she added.The center will present its first exhibition, "The Art of Scent, 1889-2011" next November, examining the reformulation and innovation of olfactory works by some of history's best-known perfumers through 10 seminal scents.An audio guide, narrated by Burr, will explain the context in which they were created. Each perfume will be identified only by artist and year to allow visitors to appreciate each as an independent work.And don't expect fancy fragrance bottles, brand perfumes, design graphics and packaging to be part of the exhibit. Visitors to "The Art of Scent" will experience each fragrance along a 6-foot-wide path that will follow the curvature of the gallery wall where buttons on a specially-design atomizing machine will release "the work of art."With the center's launch, the MAD is the only museum to study fragrance as art. A museum in Grasse, France, focuses on the history of perfume and another perfume museum in Madrid "is entirely about bottles," said Burr, who is also the scent editor at GQ magazine and the author of two books on scent.

Burr also clarified something on the above, where it's mentioned that "He will also conduct scent classes." He told us: "Not exactly. I'm not going to teach classes, which is what it sounds like, I'm going to organize talks with perfumers who will lead interactive lectures "in which participants will learn about various raw materials that constitute fragrances, such asUgandan vanilla, Peruvian pink peppercorn, Laotian benzoin, and Rwandan geranium (sic), and will curate a series of lectures and workshops that bring thework of distinguished scent artists to life in MAD's Open Studio andartist-in-residence programs."

Check out the Museum of Arts and Design at http://www.madmuseum.org/

First Museum Exhibition of Perfume as Art Form in Museum of Arts & Design

"The first-ever museum exhibition on perfume as an art form will premiere at the Museum of Arts and Design in November 2011. Organized by MAD and curated by Chandler Burr, the scent critic for The New York Times, The Art of Scent, 1889-2011 will examine ten pivotal scents as masterful works of art, crafted from both natural raw materials and synthetic molecules. A special installation designed by architect Toshiko Mori that utilizes atomizing machines will provide visitors with a pure, olfactory experience of each work in the exhibition.
The Art of Scent highlights major stylistic developments in the history of olfactory art, beginning in the late nineteenth century—when the use of synthetic materials ushered in the modern era of fragrances—through the present day." [source]
The interesting part is that it will be a semi-blind reception of the odoriferous craftmanship that is ingrained in the 10 fragrances presented: the viewers will be smelling the scents in identical canisters, devoid of the outer characteristics and only demarcated by name, perfumer and year of creation; this idea is carried on to the exhibition catalogue that will offer 10 identical sample vials of the perfumes presented alongside essays by Chandler Burr. His goal? "My goal for this exhibition is to transform the ways in which people respond to scent artists and their art. The works presented in this exhibition are ones that have each had a profound impact on the history of this artistic medium." These works include Jicky, Chanel No.5, Fracas, Eau d'Issey, Angel and Pleasures.

Chandler Burr Scent Dinners now on Video

We have referenced the gastro-olfactory synergy which writer and perfume journalist Chandler Burr has been creating for his guests at his Scent Dinners. Now for those of you who missed them, there is video footage to watch so you can get a glimpse of what they entail. Next best thing to actually being there... The first video is from Burr's dinner at The Four Seasons Restaurant with chef Fabio Trabocchi. The second video comes from Nathalie's, an expensive but wonderful restaurant in Camden, ME, where Burr collaborated with chef Lawrence Klang. Click to watch!

The public's favourite critic is back...

There was lots of speculation on the whereabouts of Chandler Burr (we had given you some idea, you should have followed us more closely) as he hadn't written a column for his New York Times column in a while. Actually make that a long while: His last review was of Givenchy's boring Play ~please don't play with it~ back in July 2009! But here he is now: In good form to give grades to some popular and non-popular fragrances alike and ready to provoke discussion on the topic given by all and sundry. Feels good to own the game, eh? Enjoy your reading clicking the link!

Chandler Burr Scent Dinner in New York City

If you're in New York City this December and with an appetite of combining scent learning and fine cuisine, another scent dinner organised by Chandler Burr is waiting for you.
The details are:

December 2, 2009 Scent Dinner
Two menus, one olfactory, created by Chandler Burr, The New York Times scent critic, and one culinary, created by Fabio Trabocchi, Exec. Chef of The Four Seasons Restaurant.

The Four Seasons Restaurant
99 East 52nd St.
(b/t Park & Lex)
New York NY 10022
212 754 9494

In the Pool Room. 7pm
Business Attire $250 per person, all inclusive

For Reservations please call or email:
Regina
212.759.9008
Regina@FourSeasonsRestaurant.com

What is Chandler Burr up to with his new book?

Most of you know Chandler Burr from his regular columns on scent, Scent Notes, in the New York Times, as well as his articles on the Style magazine supplement to the Times, and his two books, "The Emperor of Scent" and "The Perfect Scent" (both quite educational and enjoyable reading by the way and highly recommended). We had conducted a two-part interview with Chandler Burr on Perfume Shrine too, which you can read here and here. But as rumours to the precarious position faced by The New York Times, were fueled by comments on a unrelated Thinking Digital convention in the UK in which he was a speaker, some of you might have been wondering what he will do next. Or rather what he has been doing lately regardless of that eventuality!

The time is ripe for me to announce to you what has transpired by some private conversations which we had with Chandler Burr, namely that he has his first novel out: "You or Someone Like You". Yup, a piece of fiction unrelated to perfume and something that is inspired by his own esoteric path in life, having to do with his struggle between his conflicting background: Judaism on the side of his father (his mother is Protestant) and his personal choices. Feeling like an outcast within that frame, left him with the desire to give voice to what it feels like to belong or not, the idea of "group-ness" itself. "It's not only restricted to Judaism, but this is my experience", he had intimated to me.

The plot is nicely delineated in the book jacket, which bears a blonde sketch not unlike Gwyneth Paltrow (intentional or not?), herself a product of mixed background, and I quote:

"Anne Rosenbaum leads a life of quiet Los Angeles privilege, the wife of Hollywood executive Howard Rosenbaum and mother of their seventeen-year-old son, Sam. Years ago Anne and Howard met studying literature at Columbia-she the daughter of a British diplomat from London, he a boy from an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Now on sleek blue California evenings Anne attends halogen-lit movie premieres on the arm of her powerful husband. But her private life is lived in the world of her garden, reading books.
When one of Howard's friends, the head of a studio, asks Anne to make a reading list, she casually agrees- though, "Anne," a director reminds her, "no one reads in Hollywood." To her surprise, they begin calling: screenwriters, producers from their bungalows, and agents from their plush offices on Wilshire and Beverly. Soon Anne finds herself leading an exclusive book club for the industry elite. Emerging gradually from her seclusion, she guides her readers into the ideas and beauties of Donne, Yeats, Auden, and Mamet with her brilliant and increasingly bold opinions. But when a crisis of identity unexpectedly turns an anguished Howard back toward the orthodoxy he left behind as a young man, Anne must set out to save what she values above all else: her husband's love."

Things are peppered with small sub-stories, and with lots of caustic wit, judging by the previews, thankfully it seems bypassing the kitschy stuff inherent in cliché twists (we had elaborated on how art can pose the risk of Kitsch in detail here) but at some point the two heroes draw apart, as you can read in this small excerpt:

"He wraps some black shoes in felt. There is a suit bag. He is leaving our home.

Who will you be staying with? I ask.

He is struggling with the suitcase. "I'll be in touch," he says through gritted teeth, working on the lock. He snaps shut the case, hefts the suit bag. Glances heavily at the dresser to check that he hasn't forgotten anything.

Who will you be staying with?

It takes an instant for his feet to begin to move.

I hear his footsteps going down the hall. The kitchen door opening, a moment of auditory void, then the sound of it closing. An eternal period, and the car's powerful German engine wakes again, calm mechanical equanimity. I listen to the recessional down our driveway. The faint sound of gravel crunching under tire comes through the open window, then the engine, the car leaps forward, and Howard vanishes into what is left of the night.

The movie cliché is the woman reaching out her hand, touching his pillow, and only then remembering. But I, when I wake again, find by contrast that my brief sleep has been entirely drenched in a blue distillate of his departure, such that even awake I confuse waking with sleeping and believe dreams to have become merely mundane. Unlike in the movies, there is never a single instant I don't know that he's gone".

When I asked Chandler whether he feels like he might chaff some butts with his comments, even though I was sure he must had considered it already, he told me the most memorable line: "And maybe some will think 'Isn't this completely obvious? Why don't we deal with this clear problem of not being able to reconcile Jewish tribalism and racialism with democratic, contemporary universalism and anti-racialism?'"

The book is officially launching on Tuesday June 9th in hardcover from Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; you can read reviews on this and yet on another link; you can pre-order the book at Amazon clicking here.

Chandler will make personal appearences with free readings (no admission tickets!) as follows:
June 10, 7:00 PM at McNally Jackson,52 Prince St.New York, NY,
June 16, 7:30 PM at Borders 11301 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD
June 18, 7:00 PM at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
June 22, 7:00 PM at Book Soup 8818 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA and on the 23rd, same time, at Vroman's Bookstore 695 E. Colorado Blvd. LA
June 24, 7:30 PM at Elliot Bay Book Company Town Hall 1119,8th Avenue Seattle,WA
June 25, 7:00 PM at Book Passage 51 Tamal Vista Blvd.Corte Madera, CA
June 26, 12:00 PM at Rakestraw Books 522 Hartz Ave. Danville, CA
and at 7:00 PM at A Great Good Place for Books 6120 LaSalle Avenue Oakland, CA
June 30, 7:00 PM at Barnes and Noble 2289 Broadway @ 82nd St.New York, NY