Like lingering petrichor or damp earth, Meg Webster’ssculpturesenvelopthe senses—hardly surprising,astheyemergefrom“soil, sand, and salt,” in the words of the Dia Art Foundation, a longtime guardian of herwork.For years, visitors have beeninvited tosteparound andintothe shadow of her earthworks,installedasmounds and pillars along the gallery floor.
Starting March 19, thoseencounters will be bottledand available year-round, thanks to a collaboration between Webster, Dia, and Commedes Garçons, which has produced the artist’s first signature perfume.According toa sample sent to theARTnewsoffice, the scent is gender-neutral,woodsy,and slow-suffusing—withalate sparkofmusk,likeafallenbranchunderfoot, cracking thestillness.The fragrance is housed in a polishedsilver tetrahedral (a triangular pyramid)box, a form familiarfromWebster’s visual vocabulary.
“I make sculptural works with natural materials, formed into primary geometric shapes meant to be directly perceived by the body. The making should be visible,” Webster told ARTnews. “The perfume we created with DIA strives to be a primary fragrance—like the air after a spring rain or a walk in the deep forest.”
Collectors of the Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons, founded by Rei Kawakubo in 1969, know it for striking, geometric constructions—sometimes composed of boldly clashing fragments, each pieceapparently pausedin motion. In recent years, the label has forayed into arts and culture, previously crafting perfumes in collaboration with the Serpentine Galleries and Tracey Emin (“fresh, light, yet deceivingly complex”); the lifestyle publication Monocle; and the renowned composer Max Richter, whose scent evoked, among more,graphite, piano soundboard, cedar, and violin.
To mark its collaboration with Webster, Comme des Garçonswillinstall a work by the artist at their West 22nd Street store in Manhattan, across fromDia’sChelsea branch.Aptly titledCopper Containing Salt II(2017),the piece featuresa single sheet of coppercurledinto a cylinder and filled to the brim with coarse rock salt. The twoseeminglydisparatematerialsmakea sleek, symbioticform:The saltrelieson thecopperforshape,whilethe copperacquiresa tenderpurposeincradlingthe salt.Another salt cylinder by Webster is on view at Dia Beacon, uniting the two spaces through explorations of void, volume, and elemental materials. Paula Cooper,Webster’s representative, toldARTnews that “Copper Containing Salt IIis an exemplary sculpture from Webster’s celebrated body of work, which is founded on shaping natural materials into simple geometric forms.”