A Scent-illating Night at the Westport Arts Center

This past Thursday night we had the pleasure of joining a conversation between artist Robert Cottingham, whose photorealist paintings of perfume bottles form half of the Westport Arts Center's "Scents & Soles" exhibit, and Robert Storr, curator, critic, painter, and Dean of the Yale School of Art. The event was sponsored by J.P. Morgan.

Storr asked Cottingham how he came to paint perfume bottles, and the artist explained that he had started with the idea of painting just 25 for an exhibit to be called "25 Scents." But he didn't stop there. He found the work so engaging and enjoyable that he painted upwards of 300 bottles---each one different, each with the label naming the perfume removed, and each based not on the actual bottle but the image in a magazine advertisement. He noted that the collection highlights "the shape of desire," and one might also say it shows the degree to which, with perfume, the package is the product.

When asked by an audience member if he had become obsessed with perfume bottles, Cottingham admitted that the work was "obsessional," and amidst the chuckles, eyes started scanning the room searching for his rendering of Calvin Klein's Obsession.

Helen Klisser During, Director of Visual Arts at the Westport Arts Center, mentioned Magritte's famous painting, The Treachery of Images---a pipe with the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe) underneath. She explained that like the pipe, Cottingham's bottles are not bottles but illusions, and that the profusion of them---displayed in blocks along the walls---gave a nod to Warhol's use of repetition to redefine art as commerce.

The exhibit, Scents & Soles, will remain up through September 11.

The Westport Arts Center is located 51 Riverside Avenue in Westport, CT. For more information, visit www.westportartscenter.org or call 203 222 7070. 

 

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Submitted by Westport, CT

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