olorVISUAL en Microwave

The collection Olor Visual (Visual Smell) is formed by the olfactory emotions that a work of art provokes to the collector, thus providing a different exploration of contemporary art.
Created 34 years ago now by the perfumer Ernesto Ventós, the collection was born out of the will to educate us in our most intimate –and forgotten- sense: smell.
Due to the complexity of the idea, the beginning of the collection was not an easy endeavour, as the foundation is that the piece of art transmits a sensation that evokes an olfactory experience to the collector. Consequently, the first acquisitions were commissions of pieces that created equivalencies between their memories and the colours of the work, accompanied always by a written text by the artist. Nowadays, in most of the cases the piece is chosen under the premise “this work smells”, although the previous methodology is still maintained.

In general terms, the artist has only developed the senses of sight and touch, leaving aside the sense of smell, probably because it is the most difficult to represent and because the olfactory sensibility in our cultural system is practically ignored and very little developed. But usually colours evoke sensations, olfactory memories -without doubt subjective memories. When an artist creates a work, his composition is not based in one sensation but in the memory of several sensations. Art exists to stimulate our spirit and defy our ways to perceive creative expression. The Olor Visual Collection exists to stimulate out artistic and olfactory spirit.
Although invisible, smell impregnates memory: just as it emanates from its interior, it seems to emerge from the inside of objects… This is how the collector perceives it and under this principle the collection is formed.