Cabinet Magazine, “an award-winning quarterly magazine of art and culture”, is hosting a smell installation, “Recent addition to the permanent collection”, at their space at 300 Nevins Street in Brooklyn:
Cabinet is pleased to announce the opening of Recent addition to the permanent collection, an invisible modification of the Cabinet event space by Nadia Wagner that invokes change, decay, and prestige via the use of a signature of the scent of oak moss.
Oak moss (Evernia Prunastri) is a natural lichen which has a very lovely, smooth, and slightly musty odor. Highly sought after as an ingredient in perfumes in the nineteenth century, the use of natural oak moss declined after 1898, when a single part of its odor profile, Evernyl, was isolated and synthesized for the first time and became an ingredient in a range of famous 1920s perfumes and, via the vagaries of cold war fashion, 1970s men’s colognes.
[...] For her installation at Cabinet, Nadia Wagner will be bombing the building with Evernyl, a scent that is much stranger and more persistent than the landlord has been led to expect.
The event runs through August 8, and is open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 6. For details, see the Cabinet website. Many thanks to Nancy for the link!
16 Comments
Read more about commenting at Now Smell This.
That’s too cool.
Seems possible that after that much time, the smell will linger for ages, LOL…
Love the last lines about landlord!!
I wonder if they know about the IFRA regs? Because this installation is all the more relevant/resonant because of them.
Think I’ll write them later today…will report back!
Do report back!
Am holding off on writing for the moment, because, after reading the whole description on the site, it seems pretty clear that the artist would be the sort of person who would know this. So maybe they don’t want to announce it for fear that people will scream about allergies? Don’t know.
They are a very interesting outfit though.
But isn’t it just a matter of skin allergies?? I assumed that IFRA didn’t even get involved in room fragrances, although come to think of it I don’t know.
Robin, I think you’re absolutely right, but as IFRA itself, along with the EU commission has amply demonstrated, panic is not generally based in logic…
So true!
I’m about to leave for NYC. Thanks for posting this! I plan on checking out this unusual art installation.
Cool, do report back!
I don’t know why but I never knew the Latin/scientific name of oakmoss. Evernia Prunastri … I like it! I think I’ve just found my nom de plume! Now if I can just finish a project.
btw, wish I could bomb my home with oakmoss – real or synthesized!
Me too!
This is the second time Cabinet has popped up on my radar today. There is an article in the NYTimes about Dumpster pools (yeah, that’s right)…apparently Cabinet has started the latest rage by having “events” in converted Dumpsters. Well, whose space includes a Dumpster cum swimming pool. Apparently, this is successful enough that it is NOT an olfactory experience…
Gives new meaning to the term “dumpster diving.”
Hey, I just saw a picture of those dumpster pools somewhere — boing boing, maybe? — and didn’t notice the Cabinet connection. Pretty sure the pools were in Brooklyn though. Neat, thanks.