The Clyfford Still Museum (CSM) will offer three Smell This Show tours to challenge visitors to use their eyes, ears and noses to experience Still’s works in the new Still: Elemental exhibition. These special tours will take place from 6:30-7:30 p.m. on October 18, November 15, and December 6 at the Clyfford Still Museum.
Still: Elemental explores Still’s art through the lens of the classical elements of Greek philosophy: earth, water, air, fire, and æther. The tours will include smelling, touching, thinking, looking, and sharing ideas and will build on the exhibition’s focus on the primal elements. Visitors will encounter different scents and examine how scents can shift perspectives on what they see and feel about Still’s works. Guides will challenge participants to think about Still’s sensory experience while creating these works including the smell of the paint and the feel of the palette knife.
Additionally, the tours will feature a portion on the science of scent including examining the role that the olfactory system plays in people’s visual perceptions in the moment and in memory.
According to the Clyfford Still Museum education team, visitors will have a richer understanding of the artworks because they will engage more of their senses, beyond sight. The gallery teachers conducting the tours hope to offer visitors a playful way to experience the work of Clyfford Still. Scent, like the interpretation of Still’s paintings, is highly personal, drawing on individual experiences, memories, and associations. The education team says that multisensory learning has proven beneficial and incorporating multiple senses in learning experiences and has shown increased student engagement and retention of information. Incorporating scent or other senses makes tours, and museum experiences in general, more inclusive for visitors with disabilities, particularly visitors with vision loss.
Smell This Show tours are included with $5 Friday evening Museum admission, but tour registration is required and attendance for each tour will be capped. Visit clyffordstillmuseum.org for more information on the Smell This Show tours and Still: Elemental.
