Olfactory Art Center Opens at New York’s MAD

Next fall New York’s Museum of Arts and Design will open a wing dedicated purely to the art of scent. It will become the first museum or foundation with such a wing.   Holly Hotchner, the museum director, explained that the Scent Center will be laid out as sensory experience, where visitors will be able to touch and smell the various objects on display. Chandler Burr, the previous fragrance critic for the New York Times, has been chosen to be the curator for the new department. His initial exhibit at the Center will be titled The Art of Scent, and will open in November of next year.

It is gratifying “to place olfactory art within the mainstream of art history and to show that scent is a legitimate artistic medium, the equal of painting, sculpture, architecture and music” explained Burr. “What I intend to do is strip away the marketing, PR and commercial presentation of what are stupendous works of art- but are not yet understood as such.”