To Say This Art Stinks May Be to Compliment It
嫌這藝術惡臭反而是讚美
By Douglas Quenqua

Peter De Cupere’s “Tree Virus” sculpture wasn’t much to look at: a dead, black tree rooted in a craggy white ball suspended over a dirt pit, all of it covered by a plastic igloo. Built on a college campus in the Netherlands in 2008, the whole thing might have been leftover scenery from a Tim Burton film if it weren’t for the outrageous smell.
彼得．杜．庫普勒的雕塑《樹病毒》沒啥看頭：一棵枯掉的黑樹固定在凹凸不平的白色球體，懸掛在一土坑之上，整件作品被塑膠圓頂小屋籠罩。2008年建於荷蘭一座大學的校園內，若非惡臭逼人，整件作品就像提姆波頓電影中沒派上用場的布景。

Inside the igloo, a heady mix of peppermint and black pepper saturated the air. It flooded the nose and stung the eyes. Most visitors cried; many ran away. Others seemed to enjoy it, laughing through the tears.
在圓頂小屋內，混雜薄荷與黑胡椒的刺鼻氣味充斥在空氣中，嗆鼻又刺眼。大多數參訪者會哭，許多人逃之夭夭。也有人似乎樂在其中，邊笑邊流淚。

Such is the strange power of olfactory art.
這乃是嗅覺藝術的奇妙力量。

“When you walk into an installation with scent, you cannot hide. Your body starts to react,” said Mr. De Cupere, a Belgian artist who has been using odors to trigger visceral reactions for nearly 20 years. “When you look at something, you start to think about it. I want people to also feel how work can impact you.”
「當你走向有氣味的裝置，將無處可躲，你的身體開始有反應，」近20年來一直用氣味觸發原始強烈反應的比利時藝術家杜．庫普勒說。「當你注視某物時，開始產生想法。我要人們也去感受作品能如何影響觀者。」

Mr. De Cupere makes art that stinks. Sewage, sweat, rotten fish, cigarettes, urinal cakes. But also grass, toothpaste, candy, flowers and soap.
他製作惡臭的藝術品。汙水、汗水、腐魚、香菸、小便斗的除臭片。也有青草、牙膏、糖果、花卉和肥皂。

All have figured prominently in the installations, paintings, perfumes, performances and even an iPad app of this provocateur. He is just one of several contemporary artists using odor to create art that delivers an intensely personal, emotional and sometimes physical experience.
這些素材在裝置藝術、繪畫、香料、表演，甚至此一煽動之舉的iPad應用程式，都很顯眼。有幾位當代藝術家用氣味創作，產生某種極端私密、情感上，偶爾跟身體有關的體驗，杜．庫普勒只是其中之一。

Mr. De Cupere, 44, uses smells that are both familiar and out of place – like a cityscape carved out of soap or a gas station with pumps that smell like grass – to comments on environment, beauty and climate (three of his favorite topics), and interacts with people’s memories.
杜．庫普勒現年44，他使用的氣味既熟悉又不搭軋－像是從肥皂雕刻出的都市風景或加油機聞起來像草的加油站－藉此對環境、美麗、氣候（他最喜愛的三個主題）講評，並與人們的記憶互動。

“With odor, I can make work that’s universal, that everyone can understand, but still there will be a personal aspect to it,” he said. “It’s more intimate than seeing, and it’s very subjective. It adds another dimension to the work.”
「運用氣味，我可以創作世界共通，人人都懂的作品，但是其中仍然有個人的觀點，」他說。「（嗅覺）比視覺更加私密而且非常主觀，增添了作品的層次。」

Mr. De Cupere discovered the power of scent at a young age. At 9, he distilled grass from his backyard to make a perfume, and saw it brighten the mood of people on the bus. “It’s 7 o’clock in the morning, everyone is tired, but you enter the bus and there’s this smell of fresh-cut grass, and people start to smile,” he said.
他年幼時發現氣味的力量。九歲那年，他提煉自家後院的草做香水，看見公車乘客心情為之開朗。他說：「當時是早上七點，大家都還沒睡飽。但是你上了公車，剛割的青草香味飄散，人們開始微笑。」

Though there is a definite ick factor to much of his work – last year he distilled his bodily fluids to produce a cologne he calls “Own Smell” – Mr. De Cupere has a playful side. In 1999, he installed 333 bronze clown noses in a children’s cancer clinic in Brussels, then pumped in the scent of Fruittella, a European candy.
儘管許多作品具有肯定讓人討厭的要素－去年他蒸餾自己的體液製成他稱為「自己的味道」的古龍水－杜．庫普勒有活潑調皮的一面。1999年，他在布魯塞爾的一間兒童癌症診所擺了333個銅製小丑鼻子，然後噴入歐洲糖果Fruittella的香味。（譯註：Fruittella是一種水果軟糖。）

Working with Cartamundi, a Belgian card game manufacturer, he recently produced Olfacio, billed as the first smell-recognition app for the iPad, in which a drawing by Mr. De Cupere appears to react when scratch-and-sniff cards are placed on the screen. (In reality, the screen is reading a special ink in the cards.)
他與比利時紙牌製造商「世界用牌」合作，最近製造出號稱第一款能辨識氣味的iPad應用程式「嗅聞」，刮後就聞的紙牌放在螢幕上，杜．庫普勒的一幅素描似乎出現反應。（其實，是螢幕察覺牌所用的特殊油墨。）

More often, he uses smells to provoke. He has made statues of the Virgin Mary out of urinal cakes, holy water and vaginal secretions. And “Warflower,” on display at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, is a grotesque plant that smells of gunpowder, growing out of a soldier’s helmet.
多半時候，他用氣味來挑釁。他曾用小便斗的除臭片、聖水和女性私處分泌物製作聖母瑪利亞的雕像。在倫敦科陶德藝術學院展示的《戰花》，是一株奇形怪狀的植物，聞起來有火藥味，從一名士兵的頭盔裡長出。

Mr. De Cupere has a high profile in his home country, and there is evidence his appeal is spreading. He is having his first exhibition in Cuba, and will have others in Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany this year. He is optimistic about his prospects in the United States, too, although he has not yet been invited to exhibit there.
杜．庫普勒在祖國很有名，而且有證據顯示他名揚海外。他在古巴舉辦首次個展，今年還會在瑞士、義大利、荷蘭和德國辦個展。雖然尚未獲邀，但他對於到美國辦個展的前景表示樂觀。

“People are not used to it yet,” he said. “They find it crazy. But smell has a lot of possibilities.”
「人們對此還不習慣，」他說。「他們覺得瘋狂古怪。但是嗅覺有很多可能性。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/science/art-for-the-knowing-nose.html

2015-04-21聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 張佑生譯 原文參見紐時週報十二版左