Elaine Cameron-Weir’s Sculptor

unmistakable such that any cell can be observed smell of tobacco, at any time, producing a removed, Cameron-Weir all-seeing vision that exerts power may be asking through surveillance. that we keep the representational The smell of tobacco in Sculptor urge at bay. Galaxy complicates the effort to stand at a remove and make judgments. The Cameron- plinths support nothing at all, which Weir’s works are ultimately feels less nihilistic than often impregnated simply realistic. The brass bars on a with perfumes of blue field are just brass bars on a blue her own creation, field; beautiful to look at, but no more or with other representative of the night sky than a powerful scents cloud of a cow. like coconut oil. Two black, rectangular volumes sit Smell is a potent vehicle for private So what, then, of the exhibition’s side-by-side on the floor to the left. associations, and the associative title? According to Wikipedia, the One is ceramic, one glass. They are mode is quite different from that is the central galaxy titled Plinth I and Plinth II, yet nothing of representation. Tobacco’s odor in the , one of the rests on either. Moving clockwise to reminds me of my childhood piano nearest clusters of to our the wall opposite the door, a tall and teacher, a leathery man who stank own Milky Way. You can see it with skinny steel rod leans against the unbearably of smoke, and whose a good set of binoculars. The name wall; it’s covered in rolling tobacco, hands felt inexplicably like gingerbread derives from the galaxy’s location in and titled 100 (steel). Stapled to as they corrected my poor playing. the Sculptor, originally the right-hand wall is an indigo Luce Irigaray famously said “the named The Sculptor’s Workshop square of silk, upon which are sewn eye objectifies and masters…In our by Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. four small brass bars in a vaguely culture, the predominance of the look Cameron-Weir’s work is a reminder geometric arrangement. This piece over smell, taste, touch, hearing, has that looking at art is not so different is untitled. There is something mute brought about the impoverishment from looking at the . We give about Cameron-Weir’s collection of of bodily relations.” Irigaray’s a a name, we group stars objects in Sculptor Galaxy, her single- critique identifies vision and visual into , but all these room, four-object show at Possible representation as tools for establishing operations are happening only in Projects in Philadelphia. They a sense of control, whose force could our mind. The stars burn on. So share the space without interacting perhaps be interrupted by the more too with works of art: we can think directly, but through them Cameron- physical, enveloping nature of our what we wish about their context Weir generates a degree of mystery, other four senses. For example, the and meaning, but they continue their a quietly humming energy. She has way in which smells transport us independent, mysterious existences. deftly placed each object so that it sits, back inside an experience denies the Yet naming unquestionably enriches stands, or hangs in what feels like a opportunity for dominion described our relationship to stars and to art; very particular spatial relation to its by Foucault in his analysis of the it probably creates our relationship neighbors, and this specificity triggers Panopticon. The Panopticon, a prison- to begin with. The smell of tobacco the mind’s instinct to interpret. design invented by Jeremy Bentham reminds us that our names and in 1785, consists of jail cells arrayed interpretations ultimately tell us little In the ensuing search for around a central observation tower, about the world, but a great deal about meaning, formal ourselves. characteristics are magnified. One notes the textural difference - Daniel Gerwin between the ceramic and glass plinths, and that one plinth is about Irigaray Citation: half the size of the other. Interview in M. F. Hans Examining the tobacco- and G. Lapouge (eds) Les skinned steel rod, one Femmes, la pornographie et l’erotisme. Paris (1978) encounters the sweet smell of the dried leaves, enough to roll one hundred cigarettes. And it’s difficult not to see the brass rods on their indigo field as some vaguely familiar constellation. But through the