Join us for Sensing: Consumption, 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 again in a series that explores artworks through the senses.
Join Saskia and Maite as they examine two paintings in the Norton Simon Museum’s special exhibition All Consuming: Art and the Essence of Food.
The paintings we will explore are Fête Champêtre: The Picnic (Le Pique-nique), by Jacques de Lajoue (1868 – 1761), and Interior with Monks, by Alessandro Magnasco (1667–1749). Connecting the two works to the broader cultural context in which they were made, Maite and Saskia will share research into the trade, the history and the material culture informing the paintings, bringing a greater depth of understanding and appreciation to these remarkable works. After we view and discuss the paintings, we will reconvene at the Institute for Art and Olfaction where attendees will experience the aromatics, flavors and 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.
The session will take place in two parts:
Viewing at Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena
Saskia and Maite will lead a viewing and discussion of the two works selected.
Making at The Institute for Art and Olfaction (click here for directions from the museum)
The group will constructs a bespoke cocktail and compose a scent inspired by the aromatics, flavors and textures represented (or implied) in the paintings. Everyone leaves with a small spray bottle of their own perfume.
$135 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: Interior with Monks, by Alessandro Magnasco (Italian, 1667–1749), Oil on canvas, The Norton Simon Foundation