There are certain smells that make you feel like you’ve lived a life you haven’t yet had. The cold crackle of a new banknote. The powdery sigh of candle smoke in Versailles. The scent of a Fendi bag, straight from the box – all taut leather and luxury panic. These are the invisible sculptures of Francis Kurkdjian, the master perfumer who turned scent into something not simply to be worn, but to be witnessed.
At the Palais de Tokyo, the air itself has been conscripted into art. Kurkdjian’s new retrospective, Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible, celebrates three decades of work that’s less about smelling nice, and more about what it means to feel through scent. It’s a heady promenade through rose-petal lanes, virtual-reality gardens, scented water you can drink (yes, really) and the reanimated ghosts of perfumed evenings at Versailles. You don’t so much visit it as breathe it in.
Visitors are handed slim, white blotters – tiny tickets to invisible worlds. You can tuck them into a brochure-turned-keepsake, a sort of olfactory scrapbook for the modern aesthete. Some strips smell like silk and musk; others, like money. “The Smell of Money,” originally composed for artist Sophie Calle in 1999, still shocks: a fragrance at once grimy and hypnotic, notes of paper, ink, human touch. It’s not meant to be liked – it’s meant to be remembered.
Kurkdjian, for all his technical precision, has always been a little subversive. He sees perfume as something that could never become a true artistic medium until it broke from the hedonistic, commercially-oriented codes of the industry. It’s why his works feel at home here, surrounded by the ghosts of Duchamp and Dada. At times, the smells are almost indecently gorgeous; at others, disorienting. But beauty, in Kurkdjian’s world, has always been a little unruly.
I ask him what he meant, years ago, when he called his perfumes sculptures of the invisible – the title of this exhibition. After three decades of composing fragrances that blend art, emotion and air, what has his understanding of invisibility become? And can perfume, the most fleeting of mediums, truly stand beside painting, music or sculpture in the canon of contemporary art?
“Fragrance is an artistic medium of expression, it’s my creative language. And a scent created without a story, with emotion and meaning, is not relevant,” says Kurkdjian. “The exhibition Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible offers an unprecedented conversation between fragrance and other forms of expression such as video, photography and music. These last have long been considered art forms, unlike perfume, maybe for how technical the work of a perfumer is, but art is about emotion, and perfume is one of the strongest vehicles of emotion. Presenting this exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, a key institution for contemporary art, is a way to challenge perceptions. It invites the audience to engage with scent not just as something to wear, but as something to contemplate, feel and interpret. Invisible yet powerful, perfume has the unique ability to trigger memory, shape atmosphere and move us – often in ways that words or images cannot. This exhibition is my way of giving fragrance its rightful place in the artistic world.”
In the exhibition’s ten “movements,” scent finds new ways to exist. One moment, you’re standing in a corridor lined with porcelain roses, each one fired to the perfect porosity by artisans from the Manufacture de Sèvres so that the petals themselves exhale fragrance. The next, you’re peering into Eden – a virtual-reality forest where you can literally grow smells. In another room, a fountain trickles L’Or bleu, a drinkable perfume co-created with artist Yann Toma. The effect is part temple, part lab experiment – somewhere between Versailles and Silicon Valley.
Kurkdjian is the man who sells scented bubbles and who infused the gardens of Versailles with floating orbs of fruit and candlelight. He’s taken perfume out of the bottle, and into time, into space, into the world.
When he first collaborated with Calle, he realised that perfume could evoke the same conceptual charge as a painting or installation – and that not every scent needed to be beautiful. Does he think that boundary has now been broken, and if so, what does artistic freedom smell like to him today?
“Artistic and commercial fragrance can and do coexist; in fact, they even support each other. To this day, I continue to work in both the commercial and artistic realms simultaneously,” says the master perfumer. “There has been a longstanding relationship between the realms of art and perfume throughout history – a relationship that has been characterised by shared aesthetics principles, craftsmanship, cultural importance, symbolic richness, sensory engagement, innovation over time – all elements which tie them closely together within human experience across ages. When creating for my namesake house, I follow my creative vision fully but there are precise technical, regulatory and commercial considerations that guide the process. In contrast, artistic projects or installations offer a different kind of freedom. They allow me to push boundaries, explore more conceptual or abstract themes and even challenge the very definition of perfume and the fact it must smell good. These creations can be more ephemeral, more personal, sometimes more daring, without any commercial of financial goals.”
He adds, “However, there is a key difference between perfume created to be worn and artistic fragrance. The first is meant to be pleasant and [to] please. It is supposed to evoke nice, beautiful emotions and convey seductiveness, pleasure, glamour and positive attitude. Art is not about that only, however. Art is about the whole spectrum of emotions, positive and negative. That difference is very important to me. Beauty in art can be conveyed through dark thoughts or even ugliness or misery; the opposite of what beauty in commercial products is about. This is why I believe olfactive installations can bring a totally new field in the world of smell, real art and new emotions. It’s a territory where I can freely explore feelings that I would not be able to express in the context of a commercial scent.”
Music floats through the exhibition too – quite literally. With Finnish conductor and cellist Klaus Mäkelä, Kurkdjian translated Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 into five distinct accords, each one echoing a movement of the music. I ask how he approaches these collaborations – with Mäkelä, with the world’s most Michelin-starred chef Anne-Sophie Pic, with kinetic sculptor Elias Crespin – and what it means to preserve his own olfactory voice within so many creative conversations.
“I like to call them “conversations”, rather than collaborations. They just happen,” he starts. “My approach with artists like Klaus Mäkelä, Anne-Sophie Pic or Elias Crespin is fundamentally about seeking resonance between our distinct creative languages. What truly connects us is a shared pursuit of emotion, narrative and transformation, each expressed through our unique means of expression. Klaus Mäkelä sculpts sound, Chef Anne-Sophie Pic crafts flavour, Elias Crespin animates space and I compose scent, but our common ground is the desire to move and engage. We enrich each other’s creative language by introducing fresh perspectives and innovative ideas. They challenge me to think beyond the traditional boundaries of perfumery, allowing me to explore new concepts and mediums. This exchange of ideas fosters innovation, leading to unique creations that advance the art of fragrance.”
There’s a line somewhere between the alchemy of the past and the allure of the future here. Kurkdjian presents 18th-century perfumed gloves alongside digital scent technology, from scented VR headsets to air-triggered diffusers. How, I ask, does he reconcile the ancient art of perfumery with these new technologies that make the invisible interactive?
“Reconciling ancient perfumery traditions with new technologies is about enriching the past, not abandoning it. There is a difference between immutable tradition and heritage,” he replies. “I look at our heritage, but it’s important to make it relevant for today’s world, to be contemporary. Otherwise it doesn’t feel right. The excellence of the heritage left by perfumers before me forms my foundation. New technologies, like VR for olfactory landscapes or digital customisation, then serve as a way to expand the possibilities of how to use scent.”
The exhibition closes with The Alchemy of the Senses, an immersive homage to Baccarat Rouge 540, his cult fragrance reborn as an art installation. Gold light deepens into red; a piece of crystal gleams at the centre. Music by David Chalmin dances in the air while Pic’s edible chocolate creation melts on your tongue. Smell becomes taste becomes sound – and suddenly, the invisible is everywhere.
I ask Kurkdjian what emotion or realisation he hopes lingers once people step back into the grey Paris light. He says, “When visitors leave Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible, I hope they feel a profound sense of wonder and renewed appreciation for the power of fragrance, realising perfume is a legitimate art form capable of deep emotion and storytelling.”
Perfume doesn’t just live on the skin, after all. In Kurkdjian’s world, it becomes something you carry with you everywhere you go – art that permeates the air like oxygen.
‘Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible’ is on view at the Palais de Tokyo until November 23. Photography courtesy of Maison Francis Kurkdjian.
