On smell

It is interesting that when we open the dictionary, words like ‘idea’, ‘ideology’, ‘idiot’, are grouped together and resound together. In a similar but not alphabetical way, colour and odour are related and are inseparable.

Smell is the sense that triggers our memory more than any other.

The paradox is that some perfumes or incenses are made of substances such as urine, substances not usually associated with what is pleasant.

Marcel Duchamp related olfactory pleasure to painting as ‘olfactory masturbation’. Of course, on the other hand this offers us the smell of the factory that produced the Ready-Mades.

As a painter, one is immersed in an atmosphere of toxic smells given off by all kinds of industrial compounds. This influences the contemporary practice of painting, the only difference with respect to industrial workers being that they generally have better protection and medical insurance than artists.

The gas that attacks the nerves, created for military use, is odourless.

Fabian Marcaccio

In olfactory terms, I would say that my painting has two levels. On the first, let’s say, pragmatic level, it smells like vinegar: the drying medium that the silicone uses is acetic acid. Unlike the linseed oil so characteristic of oil painting, silicone is predominantly sour. On the second and more general level, the work associates non-painterly events with the work of painting.
The title, Ground-Working, suggests the smells of work, both manual and industrial, manufacturing and labour.

Fabian Marcaccio