Open House: A Trip to Japan
- to This is a past program
A Trip to Japan in 16 minutes, Revisited sold out quickly but you can still learn about the program at Open House: A Trip to Japan on Tuesday, January 7 at 7:30pm. Walk through the set of the performance and chat with the collaborators who made the program possible. Visitors will be able to see the one-of-a-kind scent propagation device, smell the contemporary scents developed to evoke Japan, and listen to the audio soundscape. Open House: A Trip to Japan runs from 7:30 to 9:30pm.
About A Trip to Japan
In 1902 the German Japanese poet, artist, and critic Sadakichi Hartmann, also known as the “king of bohemians,” led a much-anticipated scent concert at the New York Theatre. Promising to suspend space and time, the concert was designed to offer an olfactory voyage from New York to Japan such that the “nose [was] guaranteed arrival in Yokohama.” After several production delays, the concert was slotted as the penultimate act on a popular Sunday burlesque music and comedy series. In a room filled with tobacco smoke and boisterous crowds, the act was doomed to fail. The artist bowed mid-performance amid catcalls and jeers and left the stage, never to publicly revisit the project.
The Los Angeles–based Institute for Art and Olfaction picks up where Hartmann gave up, presenting a collaborative contemporary interpretation of the failed scent concert at the Hammer Museum. A Trip to Japan in Sixteen Minutes, Revisited consists of six segments, each accompanied by an original scent composition made by perfumer Sherri Sebastian. Through a reinvention of Hartmann’s propagation mechanism by Kamil Beski and Eric Vrymoed, the scents will be released into the room in time to an original sound track by Bennett Barbakow and live Foley elements by Julia Owen - the whole elucidated in a limited edition program by Micah Hahn. Participants will be blindfolded so that they can enjoy an immersive olfactory experience that, in an updated version of Hartman’s ill-fated voyage, takes them from modern-day Los Angeles to Tokyo.
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Sadakichi Hartmann in The Thief of Bahgdad. -
Trip to Japan scent machine
Trip to Japan in 16 Minutes, Revisited received generous support from Fragrance West.
Part of the curatorial department, the Public Engagement program collaborates with artists to develop and present works that create an exchange with the institution and with visitors. Enacted both inside and outside the galleries, Public Engagement projects range from re-envisioned security guard uniforms to library and orchestra residencies. The Hammer Museum's Public Engagement program is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.
The Hammer Museum's Public Engagement program is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.