Heresies
October 29th – December 18th, 2021
MAISON ANONYME
STL LA is pleased to present the first survey exhibition of cult fragrance house Maison Anonyme and perfumer Christopher Gordon. In addition to presenting the complete current range of fragrances, six new scents will launch during the show.
Maison Anonyme Heresies 2021-2016 investigates the parallels between the different lines released by Maison Anonyme over the past five years — Hallucinex (2020-Present), Les Voiles (2017-Present), and Eaux d’Artifice (2016-Present) — as well as situating the perfumer’s collaborative work within the greater context of the house.
The discrete lines on display are presented to expand on the themes found in Gordon’s method of abstracting perfumery forms to conjure narratives through association and an uncommon use of raw materials. Both the fragrances from the Eaux d’Artifice and Les Voiles lines disrupt and transform classical perfume tropes through an innovative approach to composition and presentation. The Hallucinex project attempts to revolutionize the subject matter of perfumery, drawing on research the perfumer has done to uncover fragrance materials that align with the chemical makeup of different hallucinogens.
The collaborations with the Dual Forces Product Group, open-source metaphysics community A.S.T.R.A.L.O.R.A.C.L.E.S, and visual artist Joe Merrell explore fields as diverse as the ritual preparation of the body, esoteric systems, and alien abduction. Each of these deeply researched projects push perfumery toward the outer limits of knowledge to expand the possibilities of olfactive experience.
Christopher Gordon was born in northern New Jersey in 1964 and has worked in a number of diverse arenas, all of which inform his current practice. During the 1980s he designed identities and album covers for No. 6 Records, including The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young (Caroline), generally recognized as the first compilation of cover versions of a single musician, God’s Favorite Dog (Touch and Go), and Guitarrorists (No. 6), as well as appearing on Big Black’s Headache EP. Concurrently, he acted as assistant director of fiction/nonfiction, an East Village gallery that ultimately became Team (gallery inc.), with whom he exhibited as Maison Anonyme in 2018. In the 1990s, he worked with Matthew Marks, Jay Gorney and 303 galleries, as well as the Guggenheim Museum and the Venice Biennale. In the early 2000s he moved to London to join Faggionato Fine Arts, where he worked closely with the Estate of Francis Bacon and Future Systems before moving to St. Petersburg, Russia, to work with the Hermitage Museum. While in Russia he also curated exhibitions featuring the work of Barbara Bloom, Paul Noble, Peter Liversidge and Marlene McCarthy, among others. In 2014, he relocated to Bangkok, Thailand, where he spent several years as a creative perfumer before launching his own line of fragrances in 2016 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as part of The Institute of Art and Olfaction’s first Scent Biennial. In 2017, Perfumer & Flavorist magazine published a feature article on his practice that called him an influential new voice in North American perfumery. His work is currently on view in Nose – Making Sense of Scents, part of the Speilart Festival, Munich.
