From September 18, 2025, to January 11, 2026, Pirelli HangarBicocca will present
“Entanglements,” a solo exhibition by Yuko Mohri, a Japanese artist whose work explores the transformative potential of everyday objects and natural elements and their ability to generate visual and sonic shifts. Through ephemeral assemblages and interconnected systems, she draws the public’s attention to fundamental environmental and social issues.
Yuko Mohri (Kanagawa, Japan, 1980; lives and works in Tokyo) is known for her intricate and original compositions, recently presented in Italy at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) in the Japan Pavilion. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), Mohri creates site-specific kinetic sculptures that incorporate found items, as well as reworked musical instruments connected to electronic circuits. Her works respond to imperceptible, transient, and ephemeral phenomena, such as gravity, magnetism, heat, and humidity. Random and unstable environmental elements—such as air, dust, debris, and temperature—shape her assemblages, transforming them into organic ecosystems where the sound component is central.
Mohri pursued an interdisciplinary course of study in fine arts at the Tokyo University of the Arts, her work has stood out from the very beginning for its connection to sound and music. During her college years, she was part of a punk band called “Sisforsound,” which had a profound influence on her artistic approach. Perceiving the boundaries between the visual and acoustic worlds as blurred, Mohri often disassembles and reassembles musical instruments and electronic objects to create her artworks. Influenced by the Fluxus movement of the 1960s and experimental music, she also draws on the work of John Cage (1912–1992) creating a blend of visual arts and research music that offers new perspectives and ways to interact with the world around us.
At Pirelli HangarBicocca, Yuko Mohri presents works ranging from the mid-2000s to her most recent projects, which she continuously updates and develops by modifying them over time and adapting them to the spaces in which they are presented. As the artist explains, “I have a picture of my installation like an organic space, twisted and braided through the keywords ‘error,’ ‘improvisation’ and ‘feedback’.” Mohri has a sophisticated ability to make worlds often regarded as niche—such as experimental music and contemporary art—more accessible by incorporating familiar everyday items, like kitchen utensils and washing gloves, while adopting a playful approach that resonates with the audience. Through the materials she employs, Mohri introduces subtle irony and a nearly hidden ludic dimension, drawing on cultural references, including those from philosophy to pop culture, as well as iconographic and sonic influences ranging from kinetic art to sound experimentation.
“Entanglements,” curated by Fiammetta Griccioli and Vicente Todolí, is Yuko Mohri’s most extensive solo exhibition to date at a European institution. The title evokes the invisible links and complex interactions that exist between objects, forces, sounds, and people. The show explores how each element belongs to an interconnected system in which nothing acts independently, and everything is part of a vast, ever-evolving network of relationships. Mohri’s delicately balanced sculptures reveal the latent complexity of the natural and artificial structures that constitute our world and the constant flow of energy surrounding us.
The exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca feature a core selection of works drawn from various bodies of the artist’s oeuvre, reconfigured to respond to the unique conditions of the Shed space. As Mohri explains, “I make my work in an improvised way. I don’t depict a vision of a whole sculpture from the beginning. I always want to value the inspiration I got from the place and the encounter with it.” The Japanese artist creates a unified visual and sonic environment through the unpredictable programming of the featured works, providing visitors with a collective kinetic and acoustic experience. Each installation is guided by an element that functions as a driving force, triggering and activating a particular dynamic circuit. In Flutter (2018-25), for instance, the focal point is an aquarium containing sensors that capture light and shadow naturally created by the movement of fish and waterplant. These motions in turn stimulate other elements of the interdependent system. This piece is influenced by John Cage’s sound experiments, including Water Walk (1952) and Variations VII (1966), as well as Video Fish (1975) by Nam June Paik (1932–2006).
Upon entering, visitors are greeted by I/O (2011–ongoing). The work refers to the terms “input” and “output” and represents an organic ecosystem whose movement and form are determined by the conditions of the Shed exhibition space, introducing an element of randomness to the work. Rolls of paper suspended from the ceiling gently touch the ground, collecting dust and debris. A scanner reads this material and converts it into electrical signals that activate light bulbs, tools, and instruments. The concept of a musical score is conveyed through the environmental traces left on paper, which produce unpredictable reactions when “played.”
Drawing inspiration from her musical work, Mohri created Piano Solo: Belle-Île (2024), in which the central element is a modified piano programmed to play “on its own.” This piece originated during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the artist, accustomed to collaborate with musicians, found herself unable to do so. After retreating to a forest and experiencing a moment of reconnection with nature, she recorded its ambient sounds: birdsong, the rustling of a stream, and wind moving through the leaves. Nature itself becomes a performer, as these tracks are converted into inputs for the self-playing piano, which translates them into a musical composition. Drawing from the figurative tradition—the title immediately recalls Belle-Île, where Claude Monet (1840–1926) created his first series of painting —Mohri projects a video of the location, near the edge of the cliff and collected the sound in that particular environment where the painting Belle-Île, Rain Effect (1886) was made. The concept resonates with Erik Satie’s (1866–1925) idea of furniture music, in which sounds functions as part of the environment, like furniture, rather than requiring active listening, thus challenging the conventions of concert music and the notions of the musical work as a central aesthetic object.
One particularly significant work making its international debut is You Locked Me Up in a Grave, You Owe Me at Least the Peace of a Grave (2018), an immersive experience combining sound, light, and movement to create a hypnotic choreography. The central element is a suspended, rotating spiral staircase, that introduces a sculptural yet dynamic aspect, evoking the astronomical and sociological phenomenon of a planet spinning on its axis. Surrounding the staircase are four speakers, they distort and amplify the sound like megaphones, causing it to reverberate throughout the space. The sound sources are strings, that two electric-bow (E-bow) vibrate to create various harmonics. A computerized system orchestrates this sequence, controlling the rhythmic flow of sound and light. The title quotes French revolutionary Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881), from his scientific-philosophical work–that shocked the German philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)– Eternity According to the Stars (1872). The peculiar cosmology, written by an old revolutionary in prison at the end of his life, focused on circularity, an idea that also lies at the heart of Mohri’s practice. Within this environment, air and vibration, sound and rotation, revolution and the yearning for a new society coexist with cosmic movement in a single unified image.
The exhibition also includes the celebrated Decomposition series (2021–ongoing), which was presented in the Japan Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, alongside the earlier Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations (2018–ongoing). The first group of works focuses on organic decay, transforming this process into a living system of sound and light. The fruit is connected to electronic devices via electrodes, and as it rots and loses water, it generates electricity that activates sound compositions and controls the light dimming. These vary according to the level of decay and hydration, providing audible and visible signals of the work’s mutable nature. The title plays on the opposite of decomposition—“composition”—a term central to the artist’s research and a key concept in music. Amplifiers, speakers, and vintage furniture complete the installation, evoking the atmosphere of Renaissance still lifes and reflecting the artist’s background in figurative art. In contrast, the second body of works, presented at Pirelli HangarBicocca in the version Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations (Flow#1, Flow#2, Flow#3) (2018), originally began as a photographic series depicting makeshift solutions adopted to cover water leaks by the station staff in the Tokyo subway. Inspired by the improvised methods she observed in the Japanese urban context, the artist created kinetic works with household items such as umbrellas, pots, and pans, and reworked them, following her fascination with DIY. Mohri thus develops artificial water leaks using a pump and an elaborated system to capture and recycle water falling from the ceiling. The artist reinterprets the concept of a circuit as an interconnected system of invisible forces linking objects together.
Finally, Magnetic Organ (2004–ongoing), one of the artist’s earliest works, explores the principles of chaos theory, which imply that minimal forces can trigger disruptions within seemingly stable systems. Two metal wire antennas, positioned one in front of the other, generate an electromagnetic field. Within this zone of interference, Yuko introduces mobile elements—inspired by the kinetic and linear works of American artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976)—such as copper coils and microphones, which continuously alter the system’s equilibrium. The resulting acoustic feedback serves as a perceptible manifestation of the invisible forces that move through matter and govern the world.