Cristine Brache’s Centerfolds, recently on show at Bernheim Gallery in London, draws this logic to its conclusion. Centring on Brache’s spectral paintings of former Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, murdered at 20 by her estranged husband, the show examined how the men around her continued to control and circulate her image after her death. “This project was about image and circulation, and what happens to the subject when an image is circulated over and over again,” says Brache. “In the paintings, I was complicit in recirculating images of Dorothy Stratten, and I wanted to afford her something that didn’t feel like it was more taking.”
Brache collaborated with perfumer Marissa Zappas on a fragrance that could convey the texture of Stratten’s life. “We landed on a scent that was very funereal, with lily of the valley and frankincense, but also has a slight tropical quality, like a fruit just before it gets fully ripe.” The scent, which, to my nose, smells of nectarines, can only be encountered in the room, in the moment. In an economy where Stratten’s face and body have been endlessly copied and consumed, it offers something that Brache’s paintings alone cannot: an encounter that resists reproduction.