From April 21 to July 5, 2017, an exhibition of New York artist Anicka Yi, winner of the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize, will be on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC. Yi is the 11th artist to receive this biennial prize, which was established in 1996 to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art and which recently marked its 20th anniversary.
Named “Life is Cheap”, this exhibition presents a densely layered examination of the intersecting biological, social, political, and technological systems that define our lives.
“For this exhibition Yi worked with a team of molecular biologists and forensic chemists to create an installation in which natural and technological forces appear as surging, unruly forms that are nonetheless clinically contained,” the Guggenheim explains. “Yi posits the scent as a drug that manipulates perception, offering humans the potential to experience the installation with a new, hybridized perspective".
This installation, baptised “Immigrant Caucus”, is a full-blown experience: “Visitors first pass through an entryway, or “holding pen”, where canisters emit a scent conceived by the artist. Yi has consistently sought to generate a sensory immersion that goes beyond visual experience, with an emphasis on smell and its potent link to memory and subjectivity. This aroma, titled Immigrant Caucus, combines chemical compounds derived from Asian American women and carpenter ants.
Perfumers Véronique Nyberg & Barnabé Fillion from MANE have closely worked with the artist to create this unique & intriguing scent!
For further information, please visit the Guggenheim website.