Chandler Burr (born December 30, 1963)
Chandler Burr (born December 30, 1963) is an American journalist, author, and museum curator. Since December 2010 he has been curator of olfactory art at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City.
Burr was born in Chicago and raised in Washington, D.C. and graduated from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. Burr began his journalism career in 1987 as a stringer in The Christian Science Monitor's Southeast Asia bureau, and later became a Contributing Editor to U.S. News and World Report. Burr has also written for The Atlantic on epidemiology and public health. Burr earned a masters degree in international economics and Japan studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins. He lives in New York City.
In 1993, Burr wrote a cover story, "Homosexuality and Biology", for The Atlantic. It became the basis for his first book A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation (1996), which investigated sexual orientation research. A Separate Creation was published by Hyperion, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, and its argument that sexual orientation is inborn prompted a call by Southern Baptists to boycott Disney films and theme parks.
In 1996 The Weekly Standard published Burr's article "Why Conservatives Should Embrace the Gay Gene". It argued that scientific research that in Burr's view demonstrated that sexual orientation is biologically determined supports a conservative view of human nature.
Burr's The Emperor of Scent, published in 2003, tells how the French-Italian scientist Luca Turin originated the theory about the functioning of the sense of smell. As a result, The New Yorker proposed that Burr describe the creation of a perfume. Burr's March 2005 New Yorker article recounted Jean-Claude Ellena's year-long creation, in Paris and Grasse, of Hermès' Un Jardin sur le Nil.
Burr's The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris & New York, published in 2008, describes Ellena's creation of "Nil" in Paris, and Sarah Jessica Parker's creation of "Lovely", in New York City under the license aegis of the perfume corporation Coty. Burr’s novel, You Or Someone Like You, was published by Ecco in summer 2009.
From August 2006 until the end of 2010, Burr was perfume critic of The New York Times. His column, "Scent Notes", appeared first in T, the style magazine of The New York Times, and later on the Times’ blog.
In December 2010, Burr left The New York Times to create, and become Curator of, the Department of Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. The Museum stated that Burr would create “exhibitions and programs that illuminate scent as an art form." Burr's first exhibition, The Art of Scent: 1889-2011, will allow visitors to experience seminal works by some of the greatest scent artists of the late-19th, 20th and early-21st centuries such as Jean-Claude Ellena, Ernest Beaux, and Jacques Cavallier. The New York Times reported that when asked about his refusal to display packaging or bottles, Burr replied "[T]he smell [is] the work of art. I’m opposed to the photon. If you have to see it, I’m not interested."
The Bogota newspaper El Tiempo in its edition of 2 December 2011 carried an article on how Burr reportedly had failed to disclose his sexual orientation in petitioning to adopt two Colombian orphans. As a result the ICBF (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar ) halted the adoption proceedings, claiming a lack of candor on Burr's part; Burr responded that the children knew about his sexuality and "they didn't care". On 13 December 2011, however, it was reported that the adoptions were made official and that Burr and his sons were reunited.
Burr conducts a series of perfume dinners around the world.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Burr
Further Readings:
The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession by Chandler Burr
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (February 10, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375759816
ISBN-13: 978-0375759819
Amazon: The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession
Amazon Kindle: The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession
The Emperor of Scent tells of the scientific maverick Luca Turin, a connoisseur and something of an aesthete who wrote a bestselling perfume guide and bandied about an outrageous new theory on the human sense of smell. Drawing on cutting-edge work in biology, chemistry, and physics, Turin used his obsession with perfume and his eerie gift for smell to turn the cloistered worlds of the smell business and science upside down, leading to a solution to the last great mystery of the senses: how the nose works.
More LGBT History at me website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Persistent Voices
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