Join us for Sensing: Odalisque, a multi-sensorial session exploring two paintings through scent, taste, sound, touch and sight.
Saskia Wilson-Brown (Institute for Art and Olfaction) and Maite Gomez-Rejon (ArtBites) join forces on the third edition of their Sensing series. In this edition, we will use our senses to explore to vital but challenging artworks on display at the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena.
The paintings we will explore are Woman in a Moorish Costume, by Jean-Frederic Bazille, 1869, Odalisque with Tambourine (Harmony in Blue) by Henri Matisse, 1926, and Women of Algiers, Version “I”, by Pablo Picasso, 1955. Connecting the works to the broader cultural context in which they were made, Maite and Saskia will share their research into the trade, the history and the material culture informing the paintings, bringing a greater depth of understanding and appreciation to these masterful works. As a group, we will also explore the context for the odalisque form, bringing a contemporary critical lens to the problematic construct in which these were painted.
Session breakdown:
Viewing at Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena
1:00pm-1:45pm: Attendees will assemble at Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena), where Maite and Saskia will lead a viewing and discussion of the two works.
2:30pm-4:30pm: The group will reconvene at the Institute for Art and Olfaction (Chinatown, Los Angeles) for a multi-sensorial session that incorporates all the senses. Attendees will experience the aromatics, the flavors and the textures represented (or implied) in the paintings, before participating in the construction of a bespoke cocktail. Drinks in hand, we will spend the rest of our time together composing our individual scent interpretations. Everyone leaves with a small spray bottle of their own perfume, and a greater appreciation for how the senses can enliven art history.
Click here for directions from the museum.
$150 includes museum admission
SOLD OUT
ABOUT MAITE
As the founder of ArtBites, Maite Gomez-Rejón has dedicated her career to exploring the nexus of art and culinary history through lectures, cooking classes, and tastings in museums and universities across the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has taught art history at the college level and has worked as a private chef and in restaurant kitchens in France and Mexico. Maite has been a guest on the Today Show, featured in Food & Wine and Hyperallergic, and interviewed on KCRW's Good Food and the BBC’s The Food Programme. Her writings have appeared in Life & Thyme, Gastro Obscura and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American History among other publications. She co-hosts Hungry for History on iHeart Radio’s My Cultura Podcast Network. Maite has a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Grande Diplome from the French Culinary Institute in New York City.
ABOUT SASKIA
In 2012, Saskia Wilson-Brown's interest in multivalent practices led her to create The Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO), a non-profit devoted to access and experimentation in perfumery. In 2013, she launched the Art and Olfaction Awards, an international awards mechanism for independent perfumers, and in 2018 she launched Open Sourcing Smell Culture, an initiative devoted to open source principles in perfumery. In 2019 and early 2020 she served as a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London, and in 2020 and 2022 was a Ballen Scholar at New Mexico Highlands University. In addition to overseeing the IAO, her current projects include a radio show and podcast called Perfume on the Radio for Lookout FM (LA), and pursuing a PhD exploring the historic and contemporary relationship between perfume, access and power at University College Dublin.
image: Women of Algiers, Version “I”, January 25, 1955, Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), Oil on canvas, The Norton Simon Art Foundation