In today's NY Times Arts Beat blog, The Museum of Art and Design in New York City announced an upcoming exhibition for November 2011. It is called "The Art of Scent 1889-2011". In this exhibit in an exhibition space designed by the architect Toshiko Mori patrons will be exposed to over a dozen fragrances that have defined the fragrance industry. This is going to be an experience where the only thing on display will be the fragrance itself, no bottles or press ads to be seen. Just a label identifying the creators and the year it was made. The man who is choosing the fragrances on display is NY Times fragrance critic and author of The Emperor of Scent, Chandler Burr.

 

 

As the exhibition’s curator his goal is for guests to be able to trace the evolution of modern perfume “much as museum visitors typically follow the trajectory of modern art by viewing a succession of paintings.” The design lesson will reach back to the 19th century with Jicky, a French scent that was one of the first to use synthetic ingredients, and will include Germaine Cellier’s Fracas from 1948, which Mr. Burr described as “one of the defining works of midcentury olfactory brutalism.” The exhibition’s catalog will include small vials of 10 of the pioneering scents.

Finally, fragrance is truly getting its due as the 8th Art and having the choices in Mr. Burr's hands give me the confidence that this will be seen as the serious effort I know it is. I am looking forward to next November with a great amount of anticipation and to see which Perfumes make the cut, I know I'm already making lists in my head.

Information in this post from NY Times Arts Beat Blog by Randy Kennedy. 

UPDATED: I was able to ask Mr. Burr three questions about the upcoming exhibit :

MB: Who approached you about doing an exhibition like this? Have you been shopping this concept around or did it come together through the museum approaching you?
 
CB: This began as the TimesTalk I did in Dec 2008, “The Art History of Scent: 1889-2008.” And that was a year of work with The Times convincing the Times Center that 1. this would actually work, the handing out of blotters, would people come (we wound up selling out and having a long waiting list) and 2. did this make intellectual sense, i.e. could scent really be considered an art. This despite the fact that that is the very premise of my job as The New York Times scent critic. 
 
MB:  "The Art of Scent 1889-2011" Why did you choose 1889 as the starting point?
 
CB: The starting point of scent as an art form is, in my opinion, the first use of synthetic raw materials, which freed the artist (the perfumer) from the constraints of nature and allowed olfactory artists to craft works of art. Only because Jicky is still here, albeit obviously not in its original formulation. The first was Fougere Royale 1882, but it’s discontinued and disappeared. I will, of course, say that in fact Fougere Royale was the first. I’m simply starting with a work that is extant today.
 
MB:  Have you chosen all of the fragrances that you will display or are there still some decisions to be made?
 
CB: I haven’t chosen them all yet. I have three criteria. The work must be one or more of the following: 1. Aesthetically revolutionary 2. Seminal in its design 3. Technologically revolutionary.  

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor