The Barbican Centre in London opened "Yuko Mohri: In Concert" in its Curve gallery on Thursday, a new site-specific installation by the Japanese artist that runs through January 24, 2027. Entry is free.
The commission marks the Barbican's 20th year of commissioning artists for the Curve, a 90-metre gallery that has hosted new work since the programme began in 2006. Mohri, who was born in Kanagawa, Japan, in 1980, works across kinetic sculpture, sound, film, photography and painting, often repurposing ordinary household objects into systems driven by what she calls "unstable elements" — magnetism, humidity, air, water and gravity.
The show opens with a new iteration of her ongoing "Decomposition" series: streetlamps salvaged from the Barbican and repaired by the artist, wired to ripening fruit. Sensors convert the fruit's changing moisture levels into pulses of light, while a feedback loop — inspired by the 1960s experimental composers John Cage and David Tudor — turns the fruit's slow decay into sound. The gallery's own shifting airflow helps trigger the lamps, tying the piece to the building's long-running renovation.
A second, larger installation closes the show: a new staging of Mohri's "Moré Moré (Leaky)" series, inspired by the improvised repairs Tokyo subway staff make to contain water leaks caused by aging infrastructure and earthquakes. Traffic cones, buckets, tubing and musical instruments are rigged to move and sound off in chain reactions triggered by dripping water.
Built from the building itself
Mohri developed the piece during a residency at the Barbican, where she explored areas visitors don't normally see — plant rooms, storage, the car parks — gathering disused material set aside ahead of the renovation. In a statement released by the Barbican, she described the process:
I delved deep into the inner workings of the Centre and explored behind walls and vents, peaked into hatches, went down into subterranean levels filled with infrastructure, visited storage and meandered through the depths of the car parks. I encountered old fixtures, disused materials and objects in storage, waiting to be recycled during the Barbican's renovation.
Yuko Mohri
Shanay Jhaveri, the Barbican's head of visual arts, said the commission suited the venue's anniversary year:
There could not be a more fitting artist than Yuko Mohri to welcome to The Curve in this milestone year when the Barbican is celebrating two decades of commissioning in the space.
Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican
Mohri represented Japan at the 2024 Venice Biennale and received the Calder Prize in 2025; her work is held by the Centre Pompidou, M+ in Hong Kong and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, among other institutions. The exhibition's public programme includes a performance by Mohri and the artist Christian Marclay on October 8, with details posted on the Barbican's listing for the show.
