Abstract
“Is this art, or can it be thrown away?” This idiom was coined in Germany after a fervent cleaning lady had accidentally destroyed Joseph Beuys’ artwork Die Fettecke in the 1980s. It simply looked like a dirty corner, not like a piece of art as part of his installation. The incident soon achieved a sense of notoriety. It perfectly expressed the widening gap between the professional world of art development and the subsequent lack of comprehension in many consumers of modern art, especially after the 1960s. Many people might acknowledge art only when introduced with a label of “this is art” (and even then, it may not be an obvious case of recognition, as Die Fettecke taught). This observation presents less of a dismissal of people’s judgment and more of a statement about the essence of art: Aesthetic appreciation of specific objects as art, or as having aesthetic properties, relies on an observer’s engagement as much as on the things of appreciation in their institutional deployment.
Perhaps an even greater provocation to preconceived notions of art—art as we think we know it, and art as it transgresses its own boundaries—concerns the cultural artifacts of smell: perfumes and incense, wines and whiskeys, the smellscapes of gardens and cities, and the significantly increasing uses of olfactory mediums in contemporary art installations. Can smell be art, or is smell already part of art? Larry Shiner’s Art Scents is dedicated to exploring these questions to probe our beliefs about the nature of art with the aesthetic experience afforded by the nose. His book provides a tremendous survey of the underappreciated and manifold ways in which the foul and the fragrant invite us to rethink what constitutes fine art, design, and everyday aesthetics. The book is extremely rich in examples and analysis such that the following overview and remarks may only act analogous to sniffing a multilayered perfume with a smelling strip.
Art Scents offers a pluralistic and contextual framework that looks at art as a mix of cognitive engagement with “objects” (understood in a broader sense) and institutional practices. The book first looks at the cognitive dimension of olfaction to argue that, contrary to received wisdom among philosophers, olfactory creations fulfill traditional criteria of aesthetic appreciation (e.g., do they carry representational content?). It then explores a multitude of contexts in which odors have already been used in art installations. Shiner further looks at applications where the aesthetic use of fragrances sits at the border between commerce and art to expand the definitional boundaries of art and aesthetics, in addition to substantiating his criteria of a pluralistic theory of art. Among the most convincing features of the book is Shiner’s consideration of examples that show why an inflated definition does not dilute but positively benefits our understanding of art and the aesthetic. Art Scents thus reaches beyond the inclusion of olfaction into art discourse by aiming implicitly at a general understanding of art and aesthetics as observational engagement and intentional practice.
The book’s argument consists of four parts and unfolds over 16 chapters interspersed with several overviews, preludes, interludes, and postludes (which may sound more complicated than it is—this setup works surprisingly well throughout the reading experience).
The first part, “What Can the Nose Know?” sets the stage. Chapter 1 opens with an overview of the historical resentments and philosophical arguments against the inclusion of olfaction in theorizing about art and aesthetics. The orthodox case against the human sense of smell sounds like a barbed string of accusations: Smell is disreputable, deficient, deceptive, and dispensable. Shiner specifically mentions the views of Kant, Scruton, and Beardsley, who have argued that scent is too subjective, too ephemeral, and lacks structure to suit aesthetic contemplation. Olfactory encounters do not seem to provide mental content that can be ordered in a way that would present them as vehicles of meaning (in a propositional sense). Shiner also engages with some contemporary philosophers’ views that principally focus on smell in its phenomenological as purely experiential qualities, and as absent of representational and intentional content. 1 Another objection to smell exhibiting cognitive sophistication, Shiner notes, is that people’s first reaction to olfactory encounters seems to involve a mere judging of whether they like an odor or find it repulsive, which conflicts with the disinterested nature traditionally ascribed to aesthetic experience. Shiner dismantles the largely pejorative associations with the human sense of smell in Chapters 2 to 4. Chapters 2 and 3 briefly explain the olfactory system’s basic workings, mentioning the fine-tuned discriminatory abilities of the human nose in detecting volatile chemicals in the environment with its relevance in human behavior, such as learning and social communication. 2 Chapter 4 brings us back to the aesthetic theme of the book. Here, Shiner pursues a question that gained traction in cognitive science: Do emotions have cognitive content, and to what extent does cognition even require an emotional component? Drawing on Damasio and others, emotionality proves central to cognition. It thus is not a fitting criterion to exclude smells in theories that center cognitive sophistication in aesthetic experience. Neither is the influence of emotion exclusive to smell experiences (think of music or your mother’s voice), nor are emotional responses irrelevant to critical cognitive processes (e.g., decision-making). At this point, the book’s argument begins finding its stride.
The second part, “Smell Redeemed: Language, Culture, and Memory,” provides insight into several areas in which smell has shaped social and cultural life: history, anthropology, linguistics, and literature. Chapter 5 looks at the dynamics that have fueled the deodorization—and tacit reodorization—of Western culture, altering our awareness of smells. Before the reformation, cultural life in Europe was imbued with the presence of odors, ranging from food aromas in banquets to religious uses of incense to the stench of waste in human settlements. Everything smelled, and it was impossible not to notice the sensory fabric of material life via the presence of its various and constant emanations. Shiner notes that the increasingly vanishing smellscapes of ordinary cultural life with its diminishing presence of exposure to odors resulted in a form of sensory analphabetism. Such analphabetism should be understood quite literally, Chapter 6 continues, as the Western dearth of expressive language for smell experiences is not indicative of a general biological constraint but resides in local cultural indifference. In support of this claim, Shiner draws on two sources: the domain-specific expertise of olfactory experts such as perfumers, and recent cross-cultural studies indicating a richness of olfactory language in cultures less indifferent to smell experiences. Complementing Shiner’s argument in the main chapters are the interludes, which bring to attention various examples of olfactory practices in other cultures, such as Sanskrit treatises in India, the use of perfume and incense in the Imperial Period of China, and the role of fragrances to reveal taste in the aristocracy of the Heian period in Japan. Chapter 7 further illustrates that the cultural riches surrounding the human experience of smells, once brought into focus, can be found also in the greats of Western literature: Baudelaire, Rilke, Joyce, Faulkner, and Morrison are selected examples where reference to our experience of smells is given symbolic character. Chapter 8 then tackles the topic of cultural olfactory memory first with Proust (where opinions are divided concerning the question of how much of Proust’s reference to odors seem misinterpreted) and then, more hauntingly, with reports from survivors of Auschwitz. The latter descriptions leave a powerful impression by bringing about the uneasy aesthetic role that scents can play in most horrific circumstances. Especially vivid for me was Olga Lengyel’s description of the “blonde angel,” an SS woman feared as her arrival signified calls to the gas chamber. Her rare and beautiful perfume briefly provided relief from the stenches of human decay and misery. Smell, Shiner explains, does not sit comfortably in purely aesthetic divides of the foul and the fragrant. In light of such symbolic experiential entanglements, what might a theory of olfactory aesthetics reveal?
Part 3, “Discovering the Olfactory Arts,” presents the beating heart of the book. It negotiates various viewpoints, pro and con, on the conceptual dimensions of olfactory art installations and other cultural artifacts. Key in the conceptual practice of olfactory art is its participatory element, involving the ways in which odors are used to engage the observer as an active aesthetic experience. Indeed, the affective dimension of odors here gets reformulated as a feature rather than a bug: “As Elisabeth Schenks has argued with respect to the aim of conceptual artworks in general, ‘We ought to ‘undergo’ the idea rather than merely think of it’” (p. 146). Chapter 9 elucidates this idea by elaborating on the various considerations involved in using odors in theater, film, and music. Here, smells may help to authenticate the hidden realities of a scenery. However, the use of odors in such settings faces several challenges, starting with practical considerations (e.g., ventilation of wafting and mingling volatiles) and the cognitive ramification of introducing an additional sensory dimension (may the awareness of smells break the “fourth wall” in the audience?). 3 The star of Part 3 is the master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel. Laudamiel’s transition between the commercial appliance of perfume and his explicitly artistic creations provides the backbone of Shiner’s arguments. Further striking examples that, frankly, will blow the reader’s mind are Wolfgang Georgsdorf’s Osmodrama (which features on the book jacket) and Anicka Yi’s You Can Call Me F. Chapter 10 details the conceptual nature of these and several other artworks and attempts a categorization of a variety of expressions of olfactory art: scent cultures, installations, performance, participation, perfumes, and atmospheres. What makes Shiner’s engagement with these artworks so intriguing is his comprehensive perspective; Chapter 10 clarifies how to conceptualize the aesthetic properties and interpretative principles of intentionality in olfactory art. But it also addresses the elephant in the room: the question of conserving and collecting olfactory art. (Laudamiel found an ingenious solution, yet this review won’t spoil it for the reader.) Chapter 10 may have been my favorite because Shiner does an excellent analytic account of the rebellious and ingenious streak in the works of Laudamiel, Georgsdorf, Yi, and numerous others. Meanwhile, the exemplary richness of the book engaging with its subject does not stop here. Shiner moves from olfactory practices in art installations to aesthetic uses of olfactory materials in less easily categorized contexts, including an interlude on Kodo (an aesthetic meditative Japanese practice with incense) and, finally, perfume. Exploring the narrative structure of perfume composition (top note, heart note, bottom note) and highlighting its commercial utilization as bodily adornment, Chapter 11 looks at arguments for and against the idea of perfumes as “fine art” under four criteria: the medium of an artwork, the many roles that can make up an art practice, the intention of art artwork to make a statement to an audience, and the (institutional) presentation of artworks in the context of an art installation. Shiner deepens his argument for a pluralistic and contextual theory of olfactory art in Part 3 with an elaboration that situates perfumes between art and design. Still, why should we include application-oriented creations into the realm of art and its analysis? Chapter 12 looks at analogical cases of other practices that, at some point in history, were debated as similar borderline cases, such as photography. At this point in the book, the real question now reads: Do we talk about perfumes as art or as art perfumes?
Part 4, “The Aesthetics and Ethics of Scenting,” ends the book with an outlook on practices that are not commonly considered in art discourse: everyday experiences as aesthetic. Everyday aesthetics raises questions about our daily exposure to sensory experience and what aesthetic engagement means for observing the seemingly ordinary. Shiner also encourages to think about the ethical dimensions of targeted sensory exposures in art and nonart contexts. Chapter 13 looks at the historical use of fragrances for bodily adornment (e.g., its role in moral interpretations as saintly and sinful). Chapter 14 guides us through the presence of ambient smells with examples of smell-walks (that document the smellscapes of modern urban life) and the use of odor in architectural design (e.g., in hotel lobbies). Yet, hereabouts, I have to disagree with some of Shiner’s remarks about the ethical implications of using synthetic versus natural smells, as this distinction plays into misconceptions about the nature of odor. In essence, all smells are chemical. The alluded difference between natural and artificial smells is largely a historical one that separates pre- from postsynthetic chemistry. Mid- and late 19th century chemists started discovering the chemical characteristics of odorous materials, such as essential oils, and based on chemical similarities began creating chemical analogues of known smells. The resulting rise of synthetic chemistry caused an ontological shift in the understanding of the material basis of odors. Besides, “natural” does not mean harmless (as arsenic is a naturally occurring element of inadvisable usage). The book concludes with Chapter 15 on contemporary cuisine and flavor in its aesthetic and ethical dimensions before we are left with a summary of the book and an invitation for further discovery in Chapter 16.
Shiner’s book ends with a strong sentiment directed at a certain type of analytic philosopher to which I wholeheartedly subscribe: “I find the game of ranking whole art forms or art practices largely uninformative” (p. 317). A much more illuminating approach, the book successfully shows, is to look at art as a plurality of practices that explicitly transgress insipid exercises of ranking. What makes thinking about the issue of art and aesthetic perception fascinating is the question of what our engagement with it may tell us about the nature of mind in its biological and cultural foundation.
To me, Art Scents reveals a notable dilemma for opponents of thinking about olfactory works as art: skeptics of olfactory art apply criteria to “art” that would also exclude many modern artworks from the label “art.” (Joseph Beuys sends his regards.) In principle, almost anything can be art today. Nonetheless, creations that lie beyond the mainstream are subjected to much higher standards and scrutiny. The conceptual riches of olfactory art, as explored in Art Scents, thus easily put some of the more established visual arts to shame.
The book is best read in two ways. On one hand, it acts as a profound compendium to the various cultural and artistic uses of smell that provides olfactory theorists with a solid vocabulary and conceptual framework to talk about olfactory art as art. On the other hand, it touches on several points of discussion that benefit from further in-depth engagement—the book’s strength, in my view, indeed rests in its potential to open the conversation by elevating talk about olfactory art with a sophisticated conceptual framework while leaving some ideas up for debate.
A critical question that Shiner’s book motivates, and which I want to leave you with now, is to what extent olfactory art requires us to revise and expand our conceptual repertoire in art discourse and analysis methods. I think this is a nontrivial point since direct and in-person sensory acquaintance with olfactory art seems indispensable. 4 Shiner does a great job at detailing various olfactory art examples, yet their proper effect is inevitably embodied. In a way, this points us to the institutional practice of talking about art as disembodied representation (p. 248). Artworks are stripped of their link with the body of the observer and the lived experience of observation. Yet many artists, olfactory and visual, explicitly conceptualize their artworks in relation to the observer’s (and their own) bodies. The creative uses of smell in its material conditions, including its limits and possibilities, promise to offer a new analytic perspective from which art discourse can arrive at aesthetic experience in its multiple sensory and cognitive dimensions.
