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September issue
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It was one of these evenings, sometime in 2005 during the infamous
George W. Bush era, when a politically and socially disillusioned
artist sat in a hotel bar in New York and was suddenly approached
by an attractive gentleman in a tuxedo. The initial small talk
quickly developed into an intense conversation, and when the
stranger outed himself as a perfumer, he kicked off a creative
avalanche in Lisa Kirk. She grabbed a pen, wrote her phone number
on the baffled entrepreneur’s dress shirt and took leave with the
words: »I have a spectacular idea for a fragrance. Call me!«
The very next day, inspired by the perfumer’s call, who showed
himself interested in cooperating, Lisa Kirk began with the concept
for a fragrance that would revolutionize the market in the truest
sense of the word: a fragrance that was meant less as a product but
rather the projected matter of an artistic process focusing on a
reckoning with the Bush administration and the Iraq war. An
essence that would protest against existing conditions and call to
ultimate resistance. That would demonstrate the absurdity of
consumerism and the manic desire for label and luxury goods. Or,
as Kirk put it: »If we can’t start a real revolution, at least we can
create a fragrance that symbolizes rebellion.«
Kirk is known for her uncompromising, socially critical projects.
Her work deals primarily with the contradictions of our modern
consumer society as well as the aestheticization of radical political
interpretations; but to transfer these approaches to a perfume, to
translate them to liquid matter, posed entirely new problems for
Lisa Kirk. Paradoxically, the solution was to raise a question. And
that question was: how does revolution smell? Lisa Kirk began to
search the world for answers to this question. She contacted Central
and South American revolutionaries, spoke with Black Panthers,
and approached members of militant left-wing underground groups,
with historians and French philosophers. The results of her survey
can be summarized as an extremely virile but not particularly pleasant
blend of sweat, blood, tear gas, burnt rubber, rotting meat, and
urine. The next step was the olfactory implementation of this wild
cocktail, for which Kirk didn’t rely on her bar acquaintance but the
perfumer Patricia Choux. This process wasn’t for the squeamish;
Lisa Kirk would proceed as radically as her reputation called for.
Therefore, her directions for mixing the ingredients occasionally
demanded: »Let’s put some pussy inside!«
A few months later, Revolution celebrated its premiere: in the New
York art space Participant Inc., models disguised with ski masks,
terror-style, sprayed large amounts of the fragrance on the assembled
guests, whose reactions oscillated between outright horror and
great amusement. The magazine Artforum wrote that the scent
itself was at home »somewhere between patchouli and body odor«.
Ulrich Lang, a German native and perfume and art consultant who
advised Lisa Kirk during the realization of Revolution, described it
as »extremely smoky, avant-garde, and experimental«. A scent that
is not pleasing or fit for the masses, but absolutely wearable. And
that defined itself as a pure art project.
About a year later, in October 2007, Lisa Kirk created a follow-up
to the revolution project. At the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an
offshoot of MoMA, she installed an imaginary perfume laboratory
that appeared like a terrorist hideout and had been completely
turned on its head as a metaphor for the political, social, and cultural
status quo. Eventually, in 2008, a further continuation of the
revolution cycle followed: in the form of proper packaging for the
rebellious essence. For this purpose, Kirk hired the New York based
Goldsmith Jelena Behrend. Together, they created a bottle
that was modeled after a pipe bomb and produced three prototypes
made of sterling silver, gold, and platinum. The bottles were
manufactured by Participant Inc. upon requests from willing
luxury revolutionaries – for the low, low price of $ 4.000 to $ 40.000,
depending on the version. Thus, Kirk succeeded with a brilliant
and ambivalent sleight of hand: she intentionally launched a product
that served as an example of consumer criticism and exaggerated
it in such a way that it reduced society’s notorious demand
for luxuries to absurdity – and turned it into a success.
To respond to the demands of marketing, Kirk conceived a sensational
commercial together with the photographer Gabriel Jeffrey.
Filmed in the style of a Calvin Klein spot, a female and a male
sniper who have accidentally been assigned the same target find
each other. At the end of the highly aesthetic, brilliantly cut mini
movie that is accompanied by elegiac music, the female sniper
pulls the mask from her face and opens her right hand. In it:
the deceptively real pipe bomb bottle, followed by the message
»Revolution – a fragrance for women and men«.
After he saw the clip, Ulrich Lang proposed that the artist should
take the final, logical step and commercialize the fragrance once
and for all. »Lisa agreed, so we got back into contact with Patricia
Choux«, says Lang. The perfumer now produced a more inexpensive
variation of Revolution, bottled in small 12ml laboratory
vials.
In the progressive concept store »Project No. 8« on 29th Street,
Kirk and Lang found the ideal distribution partner, especially since
the trendy hotel Ace, which is affiliated with the store, offered to
show the Revolution clip as video-on-demand in their rooms. At
this point, the revolution had finally arrived in New York.
Now Germans will also have an opportunity to sniff the smell of
rebellion. Starting in September of this year, Quartier 206 in Berlin
will become the exclusive distributor of »Revolution«.
For those who want to know what’s inside: the perfume owes its
burnt note to birch resin and tar, ambergris and musk are responsible
for the animal, sweaty nuance, and vetiver gives it a smoky
touch. Not necessarily a fragrance that Herr Westerwelle or Herr
Wulff would wear, but they don’t necessarily burst with the spirit
of revolution, either. Maybe other leading lights will soon try their
hand at insurrection. And will profess their – at least olfactory –
allegiance to the good old slogan: »Long live the revolution!«
link: http://www.invisible-exports.com/artists/lisakirk/revolution/kirk_revolution.html