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Scents and Sensibility: The Seven Deadly Sins bottled at CSU gallery Artist Nobi Shioya is working small these days. Very, very small. A sculptor who began incorporating scent into his work five years ago, now works only in scent — in manipulating molecules. His work can fill a room, but the room can remain empty: he has achieved the ultimate in formlessness. Shioya, who goes by the moniker S, has created a fascinating olfactory installation that is part laboratory, part madness, part genius and unlike anything you've seen — or smelled — in a long while. Titled 7S, it's the result of a challenge: S asked seven of the world's couture perfumers to each create a scent that represented one of the seven deadly sins: lust, greed, pride, envy, anger, sloth and gluttony. The perfumers, who consider their work an art not unlike writing or composing music, agreed. These are the perfumers who have, in their mysterious, top-secret labs, produced scents for Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier, Issey Myake, Dior, Bulgari, Kenzo and Carolina Herrera. They are in a heady, highly competitive business, and all of their work is usually accompanied by top-drawer ad campaigns that give it a visual component it otherwise lacks. But in the CSU gallery, their work is starkly presented for what it is: mysterious blends of chemicals and fragrances, emitting from slits in mounted squares that resemble black paintings. The seven deadly sins hang ponderously on silken ropes, captured in the form of giant, hydrocal bottles that have been "impregnated" with the custom-made scent. Nosing up to these bottles and inhaling deeply is an exercise in self-awareness. Will I respond best to my own worst sin? Or will the scent be horrific and, by implication, damning? Lust is first, by Alberto Morillas: a metallic punch, followed by persistent waves of earthy odors that are more like memories than anything else. Then Avarice, by Harry Fremont: a tangy, citrusy fragrance, sharp and piercing. Pride, by Jacques Cavallier, is blank, empty. Interesting. Anger, by Annick Menardo, is an unpleasant blast, a mix of minerals and dirt, with a flowery afterbite. Envy, by Annie Buzantian, is a showy, silly mix that reminds me of the horrible stuff we put on ourselves in junior high school to attract boys. Sloth, by Thierry Wasser, is musky, dense and heavy with an underbite. And finally, Gluttony, by Ilias Ermenidis, is pure seduction, a mélange of vanilla and cookies and strawberries and cream, sweet, round and full. Behind each bottle S has mounted not-so-interesting photographs that don't illustrate the scents, nor do they add to the experience. Around the gallery he has presented each perfumer and the scent they have each created for themselves (Ermenidis apparently has a split personality; there are two side-by-side scents), as well as "portraits" of their other work, like Flower by Kenzo, L'Eau d'Issey, Hot Couture, Black, and Dior Addict. This really stinks. The examples of these expensive commercial scents come off more as advertising than anything else; mark down the name and head directly to Nordstrom's. An artist statement claims that S is "contemplating [his] ongoing reconciliation of identity issues of discipline and decorum, faith and distrust, cynicism and admiration," whatever that means. The heavily Catholic element is left rather unaddressed. But, as in any contemporary conceptual installation, there is a web component. Just as the perfume travels the limbic pathways of the brain, one can follow the html pathways to more information. Click on www.compressedart.com/7S/ and find each sin explicated in simplistic and windy essays that have a moralistic tone (a long, whiny diatribe on gluttony as addiction is especially tiresome), with links to the perfumers, their bios, and links to their commercial scents, the descriptions of which are pure poetry and are the most intriguing part of the installation. Good old Dante's in there too, in small passages. In our visually stressed culture, an exhibition examining the capabilities and deficiencies of the human sense of smell is extremely refreshing. But what S has done best is brought a new audience to the fascinating work of those other artists, the perfumers. 7S: an olfactory installation of the seven deadly
sins
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