Anicka Yi Post Classical V, 2025

Post Classical V features tempura-fried flowers embedded in resin and arranged across wall-mounted plexiglass panels. The flowers appear weightless—held in mid-air or frozen in motion—while two chrome-plated dumbbells, positioned on shelves behind the transparent panels, introduce a contrasting sense of heaviness.

In Yi’s tempura works, the romantic connotations of floral arrangements meet with revulsion. For her most recent tempura-fried flower works the artist Anicka has worked with contemporary art conservators to ensure the long-term stability of the works. Through a delicate chemical process the grease is gently washed out of the fried tempura and replaced with an archivally-stable resin. This treatment maintains the aesthetics and the form of the grease, keeping true with the original process for the series, while also ensuring that the tempura-fried flowers are completely stabilized as art objects.