Born in 1971 in Seoul, South Korea, Anicka Yi is a conceptual artist whose work lies at the intersection of fragrance, cooking, and science. She is known for her sensory installations, particularly those engaging the sense of smell, and for her collaborations with biologists and chemists. Yi lives and works in New York City.

Her first artworks were produced in 2008, when she was a member of the artist collective Circular File, alongside Josh Kline and Jon Santos. Yi’s artistic practice employs scent, tactility, and perishability to redefine the epistemological and sensory terms of an art world that is predominantly visual.

She uses unconventional and often living materials, such as tempura-fried flowers, canvases made of soap, stainless steel showers, fish oil capsules, boiled Teva sandals in powdered milk, and bacteria. Writing plays a central role in her creative process—Yi has stated that she is not a visual person, but rather thinks verbally.

Yi has exhibited worldwide and has received major accolades, including the Hugo Boss Prize in 2016 and the Hyundai Commission in 2020.

In 2018, David Everitt Howe, writing for Art Review, noted that this “incongruous mix of media is organized into something elegantly allegorical about the various sectors that constitute our identity.”

Metaspore [february – august 2022] Milan

This is the first exhibition in an Italian institution dedicated to Anicka Yi, a Korean-American artist and an innovative figure in the contemporary art scene. The exhibition features over twenty installations that challenge the boundaries between science and art, organic and synthetic, human and non-human.

Disorienting sensory and biological elements engage visitors, creating an immersive experience. A notable example is the work “Biologizing the Machine (spillover zoonotica)”, which explores microbial ecosystems contained within glass vitrines that react to their surroundings and engage the visitors’ senses.

“Metaspore”, held in Milan, represents the most comprehensive retrospective of Anicka Yi’s work from the past decade.