Parfümerie at the Biennale: Zurich’s underground club scene lives on in Venice

‘Parfümerie’ at the Biennale: Zurich’s underground club lives on in Venice. La Biennale di Venezia

With a tribute to one of Zurich’s most important underground clubs, the ‘Parfümerie’, the performance duo Clarissa Herbst and Dominique Rust bring the spirit of a cultural movement back to life.

The underground club and music scene was in full swing at night in Zurich during the late 1980s. DJs, activists, female artists and musicians came together for music, performances and readings. Their illegal, ad hoc parties took place in disused factory spaces, shop premises or cellars. Among those present was Koyo Kouoh, the former chief curator of the Venice Art Biennale.

A tribute to the ‘Parfümerie’

In her younger years, Kouoh was part of this movement, which also had a significant influence on her own development as a cultural manager and curator. At the Biennale, Kouoh wanted to pay tribute to one of the key clubs of that era, the so-called “Parfümerie”.

Kouoh died last year at the age of 57. The Parfümerie concept will be retained following her death and carried forward by a team of female curators. It is being realised by the Zurich-based performance duo Clarissa Herbst (graphic designer, costume designer) and Dominique Rust (actor), two of the co-founders of the legendary club.

A melting pot of scenes

Kouoh met the pair back then at the Parfümerie in Zurich and invited them to the Biennale in 2024. For the Parfümerie project, the curator planned to spread events across the entire Biennale – just as the club, true to its name, had dispersed “perfume” across the city of Zurich in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

For Kouoh, it was a very personal project and her time in Zurich was a very important one for her, says Herbst. “It was such a melting pot of very different scenes, and that fascinated her. The fact that such a community emerged from the underground scene.”

Beams of light in the garden shed

For Kouoh, this spontaneous social organisation was also intended to serve as a model for the present day. “She wanted to encourage people to claim their own spaces now, in their own cities or wherever they live,” Herbst continues.

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A party with Batman: graphic designer Clarissa Herbst (left) had incorporated the iconic Batman logo into her mural. The superhero promptly turned up at one of the parties. Clubculturech

A house speciality: boxing and dancing together at the ‘Parfümerie’ in 1992, set to music by DJ and Zurich party pioneer Oliver Stumm. Clubculturech

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The Parfümerie itself has no comprehensive archive: only leaflets and blurred photographs have survived. At the 2026 Biennale d’Arte, the club is now taking over the Casetta Scaffali, a striking historic exhibition building in the rear garden area of the Arsenale in Venice.

Here, Clarissa Herbst and Dominique Rust explore the concept of Parfümerie on a sensory level, presenting a multimedia installation at the Arsenale: a cone of light invites visitors to dance, surrounded by light projections, videos and Parfümerie leaflets from back then.

‘Parfümerie’: Flyers, such as the one by Clarissa Herbst from 1989 – that’s pretty much all that remains of the underground club. Clubculturech

A soundtrack by Martin Schütz, a cellist and improviser from the city of Biel/Bienne, gently envelops the space. To accompany the Parfümerie project, a music album dedicated to Kouoh is also being released, featuring further sounds by Schütz and the Berlin-based electronic music pioneer Frank Bretschneider.

The Parfümerie tribute thus establishes a strong musical and visual Swiss presence at the major art exhibition in Venice: the Zurich underground scene lives on.

Event notice

Parfümerie can be experienced until the end of the Venice Biennale (November 22). A lecture and a performance will also take place during the final month.

Translated from German, sub-edited by Alexandra MV Andrist/ac