As The Art of Scent 1889-2012, the first ever major exhibit dedicated to “olefactory art,” gets ready to open at MAD in New York and lightly douse the visitors’ with the best of artificially created smells, artist Chandler Burr explains why Eau de protection is “one of the most fascinating works ever created, in any art form.”

It’s not just perfume, it’s…

 “…a portrait of a woman who is so beautiful that rose runs in her blood. And a man comes with a metal knife, and plunges it into her heart. And it is the smell of her blood, running down the blade.”

Right then. Fancy. And, uh, very gender-specific. Surely there’s no weird sexual subtext either. Surely.

The first major museum exhibition to recognize scent as an artistic medium sounds quite ambitious and features 12 notes in fragrance history, puffed into the room at minute intervals. From the creator of 1921′s Chanel N˚5 (“the first great modernist work”) to Daniela Andrier’s Untitled (2010), “an ingenious neo-brutalist work that references nature both violently and abstractly” there’s a whole lotta whiff.

Or you could go smell Martynka Wawrzyniak’s own sweat and tears. 

“The Art of Scent, 1889-2012“, Nov 13 – Jan 27, Museum of Arts and Design, New York. (Image: ArtLog)