Anicka Yi's Olfactory and Grotesque Installations Challenge Minimalism and Capitalism

Anicka Yi's work, characterized by its use of smell and abject materials, was highlighted in a 2014 FutureGreats feature. In 2011, her exhibition Sous-Vide at 47 Canal in New York featured Sister (2011), a disembodied head made from tempura-fried flowers emitting a pungent aroma that faded to reveal olive oil scents. Auras, Orgasms, and Nervous Peaches (2011) involved olive oil dripping from wall holes into a floor trough. For Some End of Things (2013) at Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Yi presented fried flowers on resin blocks in cardboard boxes, arranged in rows reminiscent of Donald Judd's minimalist works but with a foul stench. Her exhibition Denial at Lars Friedrich in Berlin included The Easy Way to Quit New York (2013), an assemblage with a stainless steel shower handle and fish-oil pills, commenting on capitalist identity. Yi's installations often incorporate food and bodily elements, such as boiling Teva sandals in powdered milk or vacuum-packing peanuts around a Philippe Starck chair, creating sinister, cautionary pieces. In 2016, she won the Hugo Boss Prize and debuted a major US institutional show, Life is Cheap, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The original article was published in March 2014 by ArtReview in association with EFG International.