What does war, femininity and love smell like? This season of the German show is the answer
Paintings hang awkwardly in the long corridors of the museums we visited on school trips.
The Marble Scalptures stand frozen forever.
The way we interact with art is art that seems to focus more on the toes that we rely on to see the real vision – our sight and hearing.
But beyond the world of sight and sound, there is an untapped potential to experience art in veiled ways – through our other senses.
The Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf wants to bring one of them together: our sense of smell.
A woman smells samples of different lamps during the “secret power of scents” exhibition – Credit: AP photo
The show, he arrested The Secret Power of Scents, It takes visitors on a journey that spans thousands of years of drinking – a journey of a thousand throughout the history of culture and the aromas that accompany it.
“I looked at the eras, the centuries, but also the things of each person and the exhibitions, and examined what role the newly married, what is played by the social space, what was done with a certain smell and the smell of discounts.
There is a guide to smell that can make for a light and engaging experience.
“Perfumes are emotional, the only sensory stimulation that cannot be properly filtered,” explains Müller-Grünow. “It goes directly to the LIMBIC system. It’s always so fast that it creates emotions.”
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War, Religion, Love and Feminism
Scents of frankincense and myrrh fill the air in the room decorated with religious paintings, creating a place that is transported directly to the chapels and the sacrum.
Those who are easily drawn to the daily lives of our ancestors can fall in love with the love that exists amidst the revelry of smells one would expect on the streets of Medieval Paris – excrement, mold and unaltered bodies.
Visitors may recoil in horror when their cabins are invaded by scents from the World War I Frontline – a mixture of blood, gunpowder and sulphur.
There is even something for tourists who are more curious about the potency of ancient aphrodisiacs. What better way to find out than smelling the roses and anal filters yourself.
A man puts his head to the level where he can smell the smell based on samples collected by NASA in space – Credit: AP photo
A woman smells perfume during the exhibition “Clents secret power”, – Credit: AP photo
But there is also a scent that reassures, that comforts, that takes us back or tells important stories. To smell infinity, essential perfumes, perfumes that celebrate primal femininity.
Müller-Grünow, the Curator, wants an exhibition to spend on the importance of the rooms in religion, politics, art, commerce, and science – all combining into a complete artistic experience.
The fair has opened its doors to visitors, with 81 different times with 37 shows.
So go have a whiff if you can.
This page The Secret Power of Scents It runs at Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast Museum until 8 March 2026.
