The Smell Of Art

The art world smells a rat. It’s not the rotting corpse of one of Damien Hirst’s stuffed mammals but the sickly sweet smell left by the L’Oréal perfume at the centre of the latest aesthetic debate. The company’s copyright victory is likely to send the galleristas into a nose-spin. Contemporary artists have consistently pushed the boundaries of what constitutes art but not even the most outrageous of the Young British Artists could have sold this art to Charles Saatchi. In the Dutch Supreme Court, the French cosmetics company L’Oréal has argued successfully that one of its fragrances should be copyrighted — in effect as a work of art. Just as Shakespeare composed his sonnets, Beethoven his Fifth Symphony, and Tracey Emin her unmade bed, so L’Oréal has argued that its workers (or artists) have created its Lancôme fragrance Trésor. The company claimed that Kecofa, a small Dutch company, was copying the fragrance. According to L’Oréal, 23 of the 26 most important chemicals used to create Trésor were used in a Kecofa fragrance called Female Treasure. While Trésor retails at about £40, Female Treasure costs about £3. The Dutch Supreme Court agreed that Kecofa had breached L’Oréal’s copyright: it will now have to hand over to the French company all profits from Female Treasure — expected to be tens of millions of pounds. The idea of Britain’s loftiest art critics being let loose on Jade Goody’s new perfume Shh . . . is fragrance to my nose. For the full story - click the title Irish Art