Fragrance: The Original Disruptive Art?

Street art, graffiti, urban art… this unapologetically disruptive art form goes by many names. Regardless of preferred word (or underlying philosophical beliefs), all terms refer to a disruptive force in action. The desire to disrupt guides the artist from the initial conception stages all the way to installation, a fact that is never lost or undervalued throughout the creative process. This infectious force of energy is not only the inspiration behind Asphalt Rainbow, but very much a cornerstone in our approach to perfumery here at Charenton Macerations: truly the thinking behind our credo of “fragrances that make a statement” (and arguably the West Village backbone in Christopher Street).

Invade. Take Over. Disrupt.

Let me start off by saying I believe street art and olfaction have a lot in common. Immersing myself in street art, I quickly realized there are these three interdependent themes really driving artists’ work, albeit displayed in various combinations in the final execution of their pieces (e.g. variations in form, style, need for permission, etc). The first is disruption. Ranging from a full-on mental disturbance to a passing whimsical enigma, some aspect of a street art piece is meant to break the pattern of the expected in everyday life. Some bombs are big. Some bombs are small. But they all leave a mark.

The second involves this idea of re-appropriating the familiar: the slanting of a message to better serve an artist’s needs. Here, the degree to which an artist chooses to co-opt or pervert a recognizable identity (Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, Marilyn Monroe…) is similar to making adjustments with volume and picture knobs, only ones that are hardwired to your sense of nostalgia (think works by Warhol, Basquait, Banksy…).

The final is impermanence: the volatile, short-lived lifespan of outdoor work. Because a piece may only survive for a few hours (or minutes) after installation, it presents itself like a flash or a burst: a slap. If you only have seconds to get out your message, you need to slap hard to maximize the resonance of it. That, and always remember that your voice is not the only one out in the world that’s vying to be heard.

Each of these themes then further propel the others. For instance, if a piece is short-lived, the artist may choose to rely heavier on easily recognizable cultural references to increase the level of disturbance (duration may also dictate scale and choice of materials used in construction), pushing to heighten the overall effect in a brief window of time (and choosing the moment to install wisely). Conversely, say a work is commissioned, therefore has a more stable outdoor presence; the artist may focus on a more complex stylistic twist to accomplish manipulation of the outdoor canvas, intensifying disruption in multiple ways: a luxury gifted from being given more time to focus on detail.

Paying attention to all three themes teaches a very valuable lesson about editing to achieve maximum impact in your work. Or as one artist said to me, “it’s like learning to punch.” The more you see an artist punch, the more you begin to understand their identity in the street art world, slowly decoding intent in their work while simultaneously stitching in your own overlapping narrative and point of view. Essentially you are engaging in a dialogue with the unknown. And to think, that unforgettable signature style might just have started with a simple actual name scratched into a wall.

Coming back to fragrance, I feel like with street art I found a long lost twin: though we may have grown up in different houses, we definitely both shared the same core DNA when it came to playing with disruption. I began to realize, that if you trace the entirety of fragrance history – both our understanding and our usage of scent – there is a similar crucial connection to disruption, ranging from the primal to the decorative, that underlies a large portion of human olfactive reasoning. So many instances of scent bombs or scented persuasions littered throughout history. And on top of that, how it disrupts, how fragrance creeps into our lives, has a significant effect on identity creation and affirmation: individually, socially, and culturally.

How does fragrance factor into identity? It is:

– a representation of who we are and where we come from

a status symbol

– a tool to enable the cataloging and processing of memories and emotions

connecting to our sense of self and helping us establish our place in the world

– a reflection point for the health and well being of ourselves and others

a beauty and hygiene mirror

– a force of attraction or repulsion from which we derive both pleasure and pain

bringing us together and forcing us apart

– a survival skill in our quest for nourishment

leading us to food and other forms of nutrition

And when in comes down to brass tacks, what is my identity? Who am I?

I am what I need to survive, maintain, communicate, process, and inspire. Reviewing the list above, fragrance clearly has its fingers in each and every one of these areas. My identity is inescapably scented. Looking then at fragrance through a disruptive lens is to acknowledge its active complexity; to know we are much more than a single signature scent, but more a series of signature scents competing for time on the wall. If we were to try and reduce our olfactive selves to one singular form, perhaps it would most resemble a resounding symphonic blast, ebbing and flowing in waves of emotional intensity as it echoes and reverberates across every surface in a room.

Street art, disruption, scratching the walls… if you take away one thing from our Asphalt Rainbow journey be it that our scented story is so much more than just the perfume we dab on our wrists. You are a scented force of disruption.