Lisa Kirk's Revolution! at 1133 Broadway (May - June 2010)

Lisa Kirk’s installation Revolution! in the windows of 1133 Broadway (between 25th and 26th streets) was a great success! Scheduled May 1 to June 1, 2010, the show was extended two weeks by popular demand, attracted some great press, and a fabulous crowd to the opening May 7th.

The installation featured an upside-down fragrance lab and anarchist hideout in one window, and a distressed store display in the other, in space generously donated by Kew Management. Signage and free cell phone audio guides provided passersby instant access to information about the work, the space, and links to online content, including the video Revolution! (the commercial) , created by Gabriel Jeffrey and Lisa Kirk. In partnership with the Ace Hotel, the video was featured in the hotel’s video on demand system for the duration of the show, and the fragrance was sold in the hotel's No. 8a boutique for $50.

Conceived as the end result of several years of research and related works, Revolution! addresses the marketing of transgressive political and social practices. Through interviews with anonymous journalists, activists, and political radicals, Lisa Kirk developed the original Revolution! fragrance based on their olfactory memories of revolution. She crafted the final scent to evoke the odors of smoke, gasoline, tear gas, burnt rubber and decaying flesh, packaged in limited edition as a precious metal pipe bomb created in collaboration with Jelena Behrend and produced by PARTICIPANT INC. Kirk’s newest fragrance, Timebomb, is a continuation of her scent-based work made in collaboration with Sara Meltzer Gallery.

Video still from Revolution! (the commercial) (2009) © Lisa Kirk and Gabriel Jeffrey. Courtesy of the collection of Tom Powel

Made possible with the generous support of: Build it Green, Kew Management, Look Solutions, Beveridge Seay, and InFocus.

Special thanks to: Ace Hotel; American Apparel; Kew Management, Look Solutions; Sara Meltzer Gallery; No. 8a; PARTICIPANT, INC; Patricia Choux for Takasago; Tom Powel; Ulrich Lang New York. Lisa Kirk is represented by Invisible-Exports.