Parfumerie takes its name from a nocturnal revolution in Zurich in the late 1980s and early 1990s when a band of artists, DJs, and performers sought to carve out space for collective joy. They took over warehouses and shop fronts, then moved to reputed music venues, spawning side-ventures while embracing the chaos of spontaneous social organisation. Koyo Kouoh, who sometimes worked the bar, understood Parfumerie as a space in which to rehearse the possibilities of an artist-led institution.
The Parfumerie project in the Biennale Arte 2026 occupies the Casetta Scaffali, re-igniting its placemaking attitude while propelling its energy forward as an active installation. The project is conceived by artist Clarissa Herbst and performer Dominique Rust, two founders of the scene, in conversation with other original participants. Parfumerie lacks a comprehensive archive; flyers and blurry photographs remain. More diffuse are its sounds, people, gradations of light, and how these contribute to a conceptual exploration of Parfumerie on a sensory and neurochemical level.
Recent years have seen a surge of interest in this era of club culture, not least as an antidote to social isolation in the age of Covid, and resistance to authoritarianism and gentrification. To revisit Parfumerie now is also to pose a question of cities today: What fugitive methods are artists mobilising to reshape an urban fabric?
—Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo
