Yuko MOHRI
B. 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan. Lives and works in Tokyo.
The recipient of the Nissan Art Award 2015, Mohri is an installation artist who recasts reconfigured everyday items and machine parts collected in cities around the world into self-contained ‘ecosystems,’ channelling and conducting intangible energies such as magnetism, gravity, temperature and light.
With an artistic background in new-media art, Mohri’s practice engages with circuits and connectivity. She states that: ‘I prefer gravity, magnetism, light, and wind to control my work.’ Mohri positions forces such as gravity and electricity as otherworldly and unpredictable, and her installations insist on the powers of the nonhuman and the uncontrollable. The artist establishes her systems and then steps back, relinquishing her agency – her circuits are left to their own devices.
In sound-based assemblages, Mohri’s approach has alluded to experimental artists Erik Satie, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, particularly though their relationship to chance. Mohri brings contingency and improvisation into her installations, aiming to capture the appearance of the world and human essence through the eyes of new materialism.
In 2015, Mohri received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council for a 6-month residency in New York. In 2016, Mohri has undertaken a residency with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and had in residence at Camden Arts Centre, London. Mohri’s recent solo exhibitions were held at Camden Arts Centre, London (2018), The National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto, Japan (2018), White Rainbow, London (2017), Jane Lombard Gallery, New York (2016), Project Fulfill Art Space, Taipei (2016), and many group shows included “14th Biennale de Lyon 2017,” Lyon (2017), “Japanorama: New Vision on Art since 1970,” Centre Pompidou-Metz, France (2017), “Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016,” Kochi, India (2016), “Yokohama Triennale 2014,” Kanagawa, Japan (2014), etc. Her Works are in the collections of M+, Hong Kong; Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan etc.
Yuko Mohri. text by Sam Belinfante. London:Camden Arts Centre, July 2018
Grey Skies. poem by Sayaka Ohsaki. text by Hitoshi Nakano, Satoko “Tetta” Sugimoto. Kanagawa: Fujisawa City Art Space, Feb. 2018
Yuko Mohri. text by Richard Wentworth, Mark Rappolt, Edward Ball. London: White Rainbow, Apr. 2017.
ArtReview Asia, Autumn 2016, ArtReview, 2016 [cover, interview]
Yuko Mohri Anmerkung – Art Hack Day Transmediale, BCCKS (Tokyo), 2014 [e-book]
MORE MORE Tokyo [Water Leak Tokyo], BCCKS (Tokyo),2012 [e-book]
M+, Hong Kong
Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
The Nissan Art Collection, Yokohama, Japan
S-House Museum, Okayama, Japan
Takahashi Collection, Tokyo, Japan
CV