Description
Shigenobu Twilight, 2019
3-D Printed Resin with acrylic and cedar vitrine
6.75x5x5 inches
Edition of 150
$500
 
Shigenobu Twilight is the first “volume” in the Biography series, a new line of ineffable fragrances by groundbreaking conceptual artist Anicka Yi. Biography uses the sensorial experience of scent to challenge traditional notions of femininity and subjectivity. The launch of Biography, to take place later this fall at Dover Street Market, New York, has been a long-term project and lifelong dream for Yi.
 
Designed by Yi in collaboration with architect Maggie Peng, Shigenobu Twilight is inspired by Fusako Shigenobu, the fabled female leader of the Japanese Red Army. The perfume’s esoteric notes intimate metaphors of Shigenobu’s stateless existence, her exile in Lebanon while yearning for her native Japan. Over a woody base of Lebanese cedar resonate top notes associated with Japan — a chiffonade of shiso, a rip tide of yuzu. Familiar but pungent black pepper, violet bleeding into hinoki cypress, all spire around heart notes of tree nut.
 
Produced exclusively for GYOPO’s holiday 2019 multiple, Shigenobu Twilight will be made in a limited edition of 150. Each delicate 10mL bottle serves as a testament to Yi’s acclaimed sculptural vocabulary. The bottle’s 3D-printed mushroom skirt expresses her ongoing fascination with fungal networks. The mushroom motif, a recurring biomotif in Yi’s work, was used most notably in Lifestyle Wars, a diorama featuring live ants that was included in her solo exhibition Life is Cheap (2017) at the Guggenheim Museum.
 
Shigenobu Twilight was launched at the GYOPO Lunar New Year party on January 23, 2020 at Opening Ceremony, Los Angeles and showcased at Frieze Art Fair at Paramount Studios from February 14-16, 2020.