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According to the artist, money and fragrance are both "not really tangible, sometimes symbolically reinterpreted, but also volatile substances"
Photo: Uli Deck / dpa
Musty files or the sweat of sweat of tax evaders: Tax offices have not been famous for their smells up to now.
True to the motto "Money doesn't stink", the concept artist Katharina Hohmann has now developed a perfume that, of all places, is supposed to spread pleasant scents in such an authority.
Your creation »Aerarium«, named after the Roman treasury of the same name, which collected the national wealth, is to be had in the new building of the Karlsruhe tax office and is supposed to smell of freshly printed money.
The creation, which she advertises with the words "Your tax fragrance!", Hohmann developed in the course of an art-in-building competition.
They were inspired by the fact that the F. Wolff und Sohn perfumery was formerly located on the new building site.
The perfume is said to consist of iris, fig leaves, cannabis, white musk and suede, among other things.
Hohmann composed the fragrance with the Zurich perfumer Andreas Wilhelm.
The first edition comprises 600 bottles - dedicated to the 600 employees.
The bottles cost 60 euros.
The price is composed of the production costs.
"Money is transformed into fragrance again and again in an allegorical way."
Katharina Hohmann
It is bottled in bottles of different colors and shapes that have a kind of mother-of-pearl shimmer.
This is no coincidence either: In the Black Forest not far from Karlsruhe, a special perfume bottle made of greenish forest glass, probably from the early modern era, was found, explained Hohmann.
"The shape of this bottle, to which special, magical powers were ascribed, was the model for the bottles that can now be seen in the showcase at the Karlsruhe tax office."
Due to the corona pandemic, the start of sales had to be postponed several times.
Now you can order the tax fragrance online and Hohmann coordinates a collection date at the tax office.
"It's going pretty well," she said.
She has already received feedback from some customers.
The money from the sale will flow into the production of a new batch of glass bottles filled with fragrance.
"So money turns into fragrance in an allegorical way," said the artist.
"The product does not contribute to the increase in capital."
Money and fragrance are both "not really tangible, sometimes symbolically reinterpreted, but also volatile," Hohmann describes her conception.
"Money and perfume work on the level of relationships, namely the interactions between people." Especially in the digital era, money appears as "an omnipresent, material absence, fragrance is ethereal, as present as it is intangible".
apr / dpa